Shadows of the Citadel
by Twilights Herald
Summary: In 2148, the Ares Macrotechnology colony on Mars discovered a cache of alien technology, proving that life did indeed exist beyond the confines of the solar system. In 2157, that life began to wonder if they were nuts. In 2183, they decided they were. (ORPHANED - PM me if you want to discuss picking it up.)
1. Chapter 1

_Current A/N in the profile, as is my usual practice._

In a spacious office in the embassies, overlooking the lake of the Presidium, an officious dwarf of African descent carefully looked over the files in front of him. He quickly slid the various holographic panels aside. "Hmm...yes, yes. These are all fine candidates."

There were two others in the office. The first was a tall, dark-skinned human with strong features and a voice exuding confidence. "I thought you'd agree, Ambassador. Still, Nihilus wanted one more on the list."

"Quite, Anderson. Really, I don't see why he needs so many," Ambassdor Udina replied. "Well...what about Shep.." His eyes narrowed. "Captain Anderson, is this a _joke_? Because it's not at all funny!"

"I'm quite serious," Anderson said. "Nihilus actually had some good things to say about her, when he was looking over the personnel files."

Udina looked up. "Are we really to take this seriously, Admiral Hackett?"

The other metahuman in the room was a hulking troll, with green skin and heavy bony deposits that gave an impression of solidity. The roof was tall enough to accommodate the man - just, but he would have to duck to get through the embassy doors - and that was _after_they had been enlarged to accommodate such a massive species. His blue eyes, however, were lit up with a good deal of intelligence. In the past, a troll so high in the command structure would almost certainly have had his tusks removed so he could speak clearly. Instead, Hackett relied almost entirely on automated translation from Or'Zet, even though he could speak English and half a dozen other languages fluently (with some difficulty.) "If this is what the Spectre wants, I think we deserve to at least give her a chance."

"Oh, very well, I'll go through the motions." Udina rolled his eyes and zoomed in. "Let's see...elf, though she went through cosmetic surgery at some point...no record of a family?"

"Doesn't have one." Anderson clarified. "Not much of a past record at all, actually. What we do know is that she was raised on the streets, Las Vegas most likely, since she speaks a number of Native American languages and shows an intimate knowledge of the show business out there, but she doesn't like talking about it, even with her psychiatrists."

"And I note she's gone through several of those," Udina commented.

Hackett cleared his throat. "It's not uncommon for an N7 to face reassignment. We can hardly make the ship's counselors go with her, when we even have them."

Udina shook his head. "All right...her training seems a little unorthodox. We normally don't allow shamans into the field, they're much more useful in reconnaissance with their spirits and such."

Anderson coughed. "She's also an adept. She's much more useful in the field than others, with that skillset."

"Right. And she can't project," Hackett couldn't resist adding.

Udina nodded. "So this unusual Specialization recorded. 'Magical Support Specialist'..."

Anderson shrugged. "Typically not used for spec-ops, but her adept abilities make her better in the field than on a ship and she's too good for a regular grunt."

"I see." Udina flipped through a few pages. "I can see how Nihilus would be drawn to the woman's record. We don't award the Star of Terra to just anyone, even someone who basically single-handedly won the Skyllian Blitz."

Hackett leaned forward, slightly. It was intimidating to look at, but Udina didn't move. "You can see that she gets the job done, whatever it is. All full mages are cut some slack that rank and file wouldn't be. Two centuries of magic and we still can't make a mage who won't go insane if you try to treat them like a regular grunt."

"Yeeeees." Udina said skeptically. "But what worries me is the rest of her record. Seriously, Anderson, the first metahuman Spectre will be a symbol! Whoever it is must be a shining example of humanity! Rumors of the "Little Blitz" alone could ruin her!"

Hackett coughed. "Those records _are_sealed to protect the innocent," he pointed out. "Besides, soldiers do do some wild things, particularly after a dangerous assignment..."

"...she turned the officer's club on Elysium into a mass orgy for three days. I've heard her old XO _still_ hasn't got his legs back," Udina said flatly. "And that's just the start. Hundreds of acts of public indecency and lewdness, she'll apparently sleep with nearly anything... This woman does not merely have 'a guy in every port', she keeps several! And several girls! At this rate in a few years her lovers will constitute a separate demographic on a _galactic_scale! Gentlemen, I will agree this is acceptable when we can keep her out of the public eye, but a Spectre?"

"In the end..." Anderson tried one last time "She keeps her drinking off-duty, and despite her behavior she has _never_been responsible for a security leak."

Hackett nodded to this, and Udina looked between them for a moment. "I take it you're in agreement, then?" he asked. When they both returned a nod, he threw up his tiny hands. "Oh, very well. At the very least, she makes nearly every other candidate look better by comparison. I'll make the call..."

xoxoxoxoxox

In 2149, an Ares deep-space probe discovered the Charon Mass Relay, sparking what would later be known as the Corporate War. As a result, the nation-states of the Earth took a step towards re-establishing their power. Corporate extraterritoriality is not legally granted outside the Sol system to Earth megacorporations, and the "Earth Alliance" which represents humanity is made up of two loosely allied organizations, the United Nations and the Corporate Council.

xoxoxoxoxox

Jeff "Joker" Moreau sat at his place at the head of the new SSV _Normandy_. His uniform didn't quite fit right, hanging off his body awkwardly, like his limbs weren't quite the right shape. He rubbed at his stubble with one hand, which had been replaced with an obvious, skeletal cybernetic, while the other detached a cable from the back of his head. "All right...Everything checks. Internal emissions sink engaged. Looks like the drift is...just under 1500K. I think I'll run it meatside for a bit."

Nihilus Kryik walked in behind him. As a Turian, he was unusual for his brown coloring with white facial markings, resembling little so much as a humanoid descended from avians. Or perhaps late dinosaurs, it was a little difficult to tell. Like all of his species, he was covered in a hard exoskeleton, with mandibles and eyes surrounded in black instead of whites. "1500 is good. I admit, I was skeptical of the human "Control rig" interface, but I see I'll have to recommend that C-Sec look into it after all."

With that, he turned and walked back, towards the Normandy's comm room. Joker waited until the turian was well out of earshot before he muttered "I hate that guy."

Kaiden Alenko looked over from where he was manning the co-pilot's chair. "Nihilus gave you a compliment...so you hate him?" His brown hair cropped extremely short. Unlike Joker, his N7 armor looked custom tailored for him.

"Remember to zip up your jumpsuit after you go to the bathroom, _that's _good. I just jumped us half-way across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead, so that's incredible." He shook his head. "Besides, Spectres are trouble. Call me paranoid."

Kaiden couldn't resist taking the bait. "You're paranoid. The Citadel funded the construction of this ship, it's only natural they'd send someone along to protect their new investment."

"Yep. That is the official story." Joker said in a voice that was rather superior. "But only an idiot believes the official story."

At that moment, a blonde woman with almond shaped eyes appeared behind the two men. Her hair was cut into an attractive page-boy style, with a few locks floating teasingly down in front of one eye. Her EA jumpsuit was thick, able to function as a light-weight envirosuit with the addition of a helmet. Other than the N7 logo and a Commander insignia, she didn't choose to wear much in the way of decorations. "Guys, settle down. It's need to know, and we apparently don't need to know yet."

"Yeah, easy for you to say," Joker looked back at her. "After all, you can just ask and he'll probably tell you."

The commander rolled her eyes. "Joker, I'm not _that_good. I wouldn't try doing that to a Spectre until lives are on the line."

"Like ours?" Joker arched an eyebrow.

Shepard looked at hiim for a moment, then sighed impressively. "Fine, I'll ask."

"Joker! Status report!" Anderson suddenly barked out of the intercom.

Joker rolled his eyes. "Everything's good up here, Captain."

"Excellent. Find us a comm buoy and link up. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance Command _before_we reach Eden Prime." Captain Anderson sternly ordered.

Joker actually looked offended. "Sir, I know my job. The reports were already sent before I jacked out." He took a deep breath. "I think Nihilus was looking for you."

"He's already here, Lieutenant. Is Shepard up there?" Anderson asked.

"Right here, Sir." Shepard smiled. "And I keep telling you you can call me May if you'd like."

Anderson coughed. "I'll keep that in mind, Shepard. Meet me in the comm room in five minutes."

May sighed. "Aye aye, sir." Once the intercom went silent she shook her head. "Great, you piss the captain off, now he's gonna take it out on me. Oh well, I'd better get going."

xoxoxoxoxox

The Citadel was in for an extreme shock during the early years of negotiating with the Earth Alliance. In addition to the existence of magical potential, the Council races were forced to contend with the existence of metasapient and protosapient Artificial Intelligences living in cooperation and harmony with the organics of Earth.

Eventually, a compromise was reached. Outside of the Earth Sphere, including on Earth-owned colonies, metasapient AIs are permitted, but must be licensed and "shackled" to a single host system, not permitted to access other systems except by crude hard-light interfaces. As a result, the majority of such intelligences have chosen to remain in Earth-space, since they do not face the pressures of overpopulation that afflict their organic counterparts.

xoxoxoxoxox

May passed by her crew, noting the ship's doctor trying to discourage the new young private. _What was his name again...Johnson...Jenkins...something like that. I should go over the file again._Having decided to do that when she got a minute, she slapped the door control for the comms room with a little more force than she meant to use and strode purposefully in. Standing in the middle of the room was her favorite turian of the moment.

"Ahh, Shepard..." he turned to look at her.

"Please, it's May," she replied, just a hint plaintively. "Shepard makes me feel like I'm actually in charge of something."

Nihilus' mandibles flared a little in puzzlement. "...but you are in command of a squad."

May put her forehead to her palm. "I know. I still want to know who the idiot who thought that was a good idea is."

Nihilus looked at her strangely. "Well, regardless, you've done rather well for yourself."

May sighed. "Okay, look, what's this really all about? I've been around enough to know when someone's got me alone to make a point, so what's yours?"

Nihilus cocked his head at her. "All right. I was going to wait until Captain Anderson got here, but since you're so eager...I've put your name forward as a candidate for the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance unit." Shepard kept looking at him like he hadn't even spoken. "Commander?"

"...is this a joke, Nihilus? Because it's not funny." May sounded less than amused.

Nihilus shook his head. "It's not a joke, Shepard. The Council is always on the lookout for people with certain talents. Yours are...exceptional, even unique. You are a wizard."

"Shaman," May corrected. "That's actually a technical term, and there are some differences. I won't go into it, you'd probably go nuts trying to understand. Goddess knows, I probably have."

Nihilus nodded. "And I suspect that's some of the reason your file is so...thick. But that caught my attention."

"Riiiiiiight." May drew out the word slowly. "Look, you don't want me. I've got a commission because the Alliance doesn't _have_Awakened grunts. I'm ranked Commander because of what happened on Elysium. But I'm not a soldier."

Nihilus nodded. "I couldn't agree more. You're not a soldier." He activated his omni-tool and tapped out a few commands. "Let's see...you follow orders mostly only when it suits you. Instead, you prefer to solve problems your own way. You barely manage to _pretend_to respect most of your superior officers...interesting, I haven't seen that so far."

"Captain Anderson has a minor magical knack. He can see on the Astral." May explained. "Most of the time, Alliance brass doesn't get what I'm trying to report. He's at least seen it, so he knows what I'm trying to explain to him."

"I see. You'll have a lot to teach me." Nihilus continued. "Ahh, here's an interesting one. 'Believes proper rules and procedures are something that happens to other people.' That can't be wholly true, but I do admit that you showed qualities that intrigued me. Out of all the dossiers that were presented, you were the only one who showed any independence from the chain of command."

May sighed and shook her head. "Look, as much as it sounds like you may have thought this through, I just want to get my ten years done and retire. I never was the type to enjoy getting shot at, and that 'Hero of Elysium' business has always attracted just the wrong sort of attention."

"You don't have to decide right now," Nihilus clarified. "For the time being I'll be stationed on the Normandy, working with you on upcoming missions and evaluating you. If I like what I see, he can discuss getting you into a specialized training program and seeing how you do. Then, maybe, if you pass everything else you'll be given the option to decline."

"But I really hope you don't." Anderson stepped in. "It would be a shame to waste this chance, Shepard. Think of what it could mean for Earth. If the Council admits a metahuman into the Spectres, it will show just how far we've come."

May watched as the Captain came up to join the conversation. She put her head in her chin, miming thinking about it for a moment. "Nope, doesn't much matter to me. But I will agree that if there are no metahumans in the Spectres, there are threats from Earth Space the Council isn't even remotely prepared to deal with. Since it looks like I'm the top candidate, we'll get started. On one condition."

Anderson looked startled, but sighed. "What?"

"Keep looking, Captain." Shepard looked at him flatly. "I'm just the most famous, that shouldn't be enough to exclude other Awakened personnel from this chance. There's even a chance some of them might actually want the job."

Nihilus shrugged. "She has a point."

Anderson nodded. "That's fair enough."

May leaned back against the hand rails at the side of the room. "All right. So that's why we needed the stealth systems up. And the fact that Nihilus is here in person rather than giving us orders like a voice over the extranet means that we've got a mission. So, what is it?"

Anderson shook his head. "Breaking protocol again, Shepard?"

"It's May, sir." The woman smirked. "And isn't that how I got this gig?"

Anderson laughed. "I suppose you're right." Then he turned serious. "We're here to make a covert pickup. Nothing too fancy, except the package. A Prothean beacon."

"..." May stared at him. "Okay, now I know why we've got a Spectre along. Even if the Alliance can handle this on our own, no one wants that falling into just one set of hands."

"Exactly." Nihilus looked at her. "This goes beyond mere metahuman interests, May. There's a team of scientists waiting at the Citadel for this thing."

May looked thoughtful. "All right. Seems like it's easy enough. I'll tell my squad to get suited up though. Nihilus, I hope you don't mind, but I'm taking charge of this mission. Eden Prime's a big enough colony for magical threats we don't know about to make a play for the beacon, and you don't have any experience with that."

Nihilus looked like he might protest, then sighed. "I'll defer to your judgement, but this is my mission."

"...Spectre's always in charge?" May asked. "Never mind. Just make sure that if I tell you something's off, you listen."

Nihilus nodded. "Understood."

Joker suddenly cut in. "I'm getting a signal from Eden Prime. You're going to want to see this. Jacking in, just in case."

"Put it on screen, Joker," Shepard cut off Anderson's order.

"On it." Joker's voice had changed subtly, from an actual transmission to a virtual reconstruction from inside the ship's hosts. Nihilus looked like he wanted to make a comment, but he was stopped dead by what he saw.

The scene was chaos. A squad of human soldiers, in a mishmash of armor styles from different manufacturers, were fighting. The sounds of gunfire and grenades roared over the voice of one of the marines, trying to shout into the helmet cam of his comms officer. "This is the Eden Prime colony! We are under attack! Repeat, under attack!" The man wearing the camera was violently shoved around, showing scenes of combat drones and some unidentifiable humanoids. For several seconds, the camera turned skyward, showing a clear shot of a long ship.

It wasn't any design May was aware of. Clearly silhouetted against the screen, it looked to be kilometers long, easily. Eight long legs distended from its' "abdomen," making it look like a giant insect, with two sensor arrays resembling compound eyes. "Hold" Anderson said as that came up. "...this mission just became a lot more complicated."

Nihilus' mandibles fluttered nervously.

xoxoxoxoxox

Everything went smoothly. Gear was grabbed out of lockers, and affixed to harnesses. Kaiden and Jenkins were both wearing the standard N7 armor, with full weapons harness attached. Nihilus looked rather...impressive next to them, the red and black armor he had brought with him seeming designed to strike an impression as much as protect.

And Shepard...

Shepard had apparently decided that armor was for lesser mortals. Instead, she wore an engineer's EVA jumpsuit, cinched tightly at the waist by a fine, hand-crafted leather belt and holster containing the alliance-issued pistol. Carefully sewn over the engineer insignia was an N7 meant to be used with the dress uniform, and her shoulders had commander ranks sewn in as well. She wore sturdy leather boots, each with another pistol holster carefully concealed along her legs with chrome-plated handles. Only the helmet carried carefully under her arm looked at all protective, at least where they would be going.

Nihilus' eyes widened a bit as he looked over the ensemble. "Shepard, you _do_understand that we're going into a combat zone, right?"

"Sustaining focus," she replied, touching the belt. "Joker, let me know when we hit the gaiasphere."

"You're clear, Commander. Work some of that old black magic," Joker responded over the intercom.

Nihilus stared at her for a moment as May closed her eyes and shivered pleasantly, slowly taking on a soft reddish glow. "...so this is magic."

"Armor spell," May confirmed. "It'll stop most rounds like hardened armor, but enough too fast will wear _me_down, not just the spell. The belt helps keep it going, so I don't have to concentrate on it."

"I see." Nihilus seemed appeased. "When we land, I'll go scout out ahead."

May stared at him. "You were just told we might be facing magical opposition and you want to scout ahead? Are you crazy?"

Nihilus stopped. "I move faster on my own..."

"..not faster than a spirit. Hold on." May closed her eyes again and actually swayed on the spot this time. In a gust of unnatural wind, a human-sized figure appeared, wispy and barely substantial, in the shape of a female human. While obviously unclothed, there were no details on the figure below the neck, like a doll. Nihilus looked at the figure, fascinated, but also with a sense of dread. He felt like he was confronting a being of great power. That was ridiculous, though, what could something like that do to him? "I want you to go with this man here," May pointed at the Spectre. "Hide him, and keep him safe, and tell him if you see anything dangerous." She paused to think for a moment. "Oh, and try not to let him do anything dumb."

The spirit giggled at the last request, before sliding sinuously around Nihilus, vanishing into the ether a few moments later. "...don't let me do anything dumb?" the Turian asked.

"It's all in how you talk to them," May grinned. "They like to feel superior."

Nihilus shook his head. "A lot to learn indeed."

Anderson coughed. "All right. We're almost in position. Your job is to secure the beacon by any means necessary...and preferably keeping within the bounds of common decency to do it, Shepard."

"HEY! That was _one time_!" May protested.

xoxoxoxoxox

Mana is everywhere. The reason is considered one of the great mysteries of modern thaumaturgy, but no one can deny that is true. Wherever there is organic life, there is enough of a manasphere, or gaiasphere, to begin manipulating magic. Gathering enough sentient beings onto an uninhabited planet will cause it to Awaken in the most basic of ways. This is true even for alien species, none of whom are known to be Awakened themselves.

There are caveats. Young, created gaiaspheres are always weaker than those that have appeared naturally, and gaiaspheres created solely by alien life _tend_to be weaker than those created by humans, but in both cases there are exceptions. The strangest is the Citadel. It's background count is only slightly weaker and more 'stale' than that of Earth.

xoxoxoxoxox

Eden Prime was quiet. A little too quiet for May's tastes. "Wish we could've put down in the spaceport."

"Wasn't an option, Commander," Kaiden shrugged. "Besides, it's not far, only a klick."

Jenkins glanced at her. "I'm from this planet. Been on this path before. Just follow it, you should get to town."

"Right. Move out." The three Alliance officers moved cautiously. For Kaiden's casual reluctance, he was the most cautious, keeping to the rear. Jenkins, in heavy armor, took up the front. May kept to the middle, casually unfolding her pistol and keeping the secondary safeties on.

When they came up to the top of the first hill, May signaled for them to stop. Her vision dropped into the astral, and she scanned the horizon. "City is definitely under attack, but I can't see what's doing the fighting from here. Just fear, a few shapes scurrying away. Probably using drones."

"How do we proceed, commander?" Kaiden asked.

May shook her head. "With extreme caution. Drones-only probably means Alliance. I hate it when the op-for is working for my employer." She gestured to continue.

Jenkins, for all his excitement, knew his job perfectly. He glanced down the hill, then moved out and began going from cover point to cover point. Then, half-way down the hill, with Shepard and Kaiden right behind him, he took three plasma bolts to the face.

"DAMN!" May ducked behind a rock as Jenkins fell down. "Alenko! Figure out what that was and reconfigure your shield. Nihilus, if you're receiving, they're using Ares Firelance lasers, I think. Link up with the Normandy and get a shield configuration that can handle them."

"Shepard, radio silence!" Nihilus barked back.

May rolled her eyes. "My mistake. Next time I'll let the unknown enemies rip through your shields and melt you to the ground." She clicked the radio off and ducked out from behind the corner, taking aim with her pistol and firing off a few shots - all of which went wide. "Nngh. Alliance junk." She tried lining up another shot, this time noticing the unusual hovering design of the drones.

Those drones had a single, oval-shaped eye, with a weapon dropping down to point in the same direction. She realized they were propelled by a mass effect field, and the styling didn't strike her as being at all familiar. "..let's see how you handle THIS!" May held out a finger, pointed at the drones, and concentrated.

Magic, for all the mystery and danger that surrounded it, was surprisingly simple for its' practitioners. Focus on the patterns of magic committed to memory, see how they fit into the local mana field, and where they didn't, _make_ them fit. In this case, it was a simple bolt of electricity that jumped out from May Shepard's fingertip and arced between the two drones. The only problem with this was that it tapped into her reserves. She had had to adjust a _lot_to get it to work on such an alien planet, despite the high mana count, and it didn't do her much good. She fell back against the rock. "Go help Jenkins," she ordered, catching her breath while Kaiden went to check on the fallen man.

By the time May had picked herself up and gotten to him, Kaiden was shaking his head and closing the poor kid's eyes. "Ripped right through his shields. Never had a chance, with the wrong shield configuration."

"No one uses pure energy weapons anymore. Too inefficient. It's all mass-effect kinetics," May sighed. "We'll see that he gets a proper burial. Are you set?"

"Yes ma'am. That won't hit us again." Kaiden confirmed.

May nodded. "Let's keep moving."

xoxoxoxoxox

Magic has limits. It cannot fundamentally alter the fabric of space and time. While speeding up or slowing down of a particular process is possible, one second is always one second. Teleportation and faster-than-light travel are solely the domain of Biotics.

Finally, under no circumstances can magic return the dead to life. All initially successful attempts to do so have proven to be disastrous mistakes in the long term.

xoxoxoxoxox

The team, now down by one, slowly made their way over several more hills, before coming on a small collection of trees. May silently directed Kaiden into cover before peering out from behind a rock, noticing several more drones. She nodded to her companion, who readied several discs and tossed them out among the floating drones. The discs exploded into another shower of electrical sparks and the drones fell to the ground.

Shepard didn't look reassured. "This is way too simple. Alliance-space designed drones would have better shielding. Hell, _Citadel_megacorp drones would have better shielding, and they prefer live operatives. I don't think these are Earthers."

"Well, who are they then?" Kaiden asked her.

Shepard just shook her head. "No idea. Keep moving."

They exited the trees, looking down the hill at an even stranger sight. One human soldier was running towards them, firing her pistol over her shoulder. Behind her, two tall anthroform drones, all smooth lines and exposed myomer "muscle," held a human wearing a grey T-shirt and boxers to a device. The man, obviously Alliance military from the fact that he was wearing the PT uniform, was suddenly impaled and carried into the air by a tall spike. The drones turned and looked towards the fleeing soldier.

"I don't know who you are, but DUCK!" May pulled her hand back and tossed another lightning bolt, frying the synthetics and sending them tumbling to the ground. With more panting, she stumbled over to the woman. "...huh...huh...okay, you're with the ground crew on the beacon, right."

"Yes Ma'am. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams." The woman saluted, then looked at her rescuer closely. "Are...you okay?"

"I'll be fine." May stood up to return the salute. "Sorry, just a little jumpy. You have a bead on who made these drones?"

"...to be honest, Ma'am. I think they're Geth." Williams said.

"Geth? Oh, sorry, where are my manners? May Shepard, this is Lieutenant Alenko." Shepard gulped down a little more air.

Kaiden looked a little skeptical as well. "The Geth haven't been seen outside the Perseus Veil in over two hundred years. What are they doing here now?"

May gave him a _look_. "Beacon, remember? Dammit. Citadel AIs are bad news. Sure, no one really _knows_ the trick to a stable artificial intelligence, but intentional persecution _does not help_. Williams, you functional?"

Williams smiled. _"_With these mods I've got, they couldn't touch me."

May smiled. "Cyber. Nice. Don't see too much on ground postings. All right, you've got point. Welcome to the special forces."

xoxoxoxoxox

Cybernetics are still in quite common use on Earth and among its' colonies. Artificial bone lacing can offset the loss of calcium from low-gravity environments, and the benefits of other improvements are obvious. While Gene-Mods and bioware are both well out of their infancy, cyber is still the only way to go for many alterations.

xoxoxoxoxox

A few rocks provided the three operatives with great cover as they approached the ruin. All that was left of the unearthed site was a single wall, and a stone, runic circle set into the ground. Shepard gestured Williams forward, and was quickly surprised when three more Geth jumped out.

She was even more surprised when Ashley put on a burst of inhuman speed, unfolding her assault rifle and clearly taking aim down the sites at the first one, putting several bullets in its' optical sensor even as she moved behind the next rock. May barely had time to line up one shot with her pistol before Ashley was ready to move again, aiming a kick into the mid-section of the next robot before shooting down the third.

Once all three were down, Ashley turned around. "I don't understand, the Beacon was right here."

Kaiden looked up. "They must have moved it."

"The spaceport," Shepard agreed. With nothing more to say, they started running up the next hill.

Just then, Nihilus' voice came back over the radio. "I managed to shake some pursuit. I'm at the spaceport now. I'm going to check it out..."

xoxoxoxoxox

Nihilus clicked off his radio again, carefully sneaking along the ground, and staying out of sight. He spotted a single Turian, with an imbalanced cybernetic arm and sleek, metalic-looking armor. As he got closer, he was surprised to see that he actually recognized him. "Saren? What are you doing here?"

Saren whipped out his pistol and spun around, covering the entire area with what seemed to be a wild swing. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

Nihilus's mandibles fluttered rapidly in confusion. "Saren? I'm standing right here. It's me, Nihilus..."

Saren just started to put his pistol away. "I must be hearing things..."

Nihilus slapped his forehead. "Right...spirit, can you let me see my friend?"

To his confusion, he heard a whisper in his ear. "The bad machine spirit has him. The one in the sky. You shouldn't talk to him, or the spirit might get you too..."

xoxoxoxoxox

Shepard and her comrades continued up the hill, noting some trailers strewn around. "This is the research camp," Ashley explained. "The Geth chased us out of here. We were going to try to double-back to get to the spaceport and the beacon..."

"...it's a good spot for an ambush," Kaiden pointed out. "Keep your guard up."

May glanced at several more of the spikes the soldier had been impaled on, each with their own metahuman. Only these had been...changed. Covered in wires and metal plates, like they had been used as raw material.

With little warning, the spikes descended. "Oh my GOD! They're still alive!" Kaiden raised his pistol and began firing at the robotic zombies, with May following suit rapidly.

"What did the Geth do to them?" Ashley choked out, spraying rifle fire wildly.

May didn't respond, but instead tried a third lightning strike. With a soft groan at the exertion, the lightning exploded all around the husks, but to no avail. Their shields were destroyed, but they kept coming. "...fall back!"

The three started moving slowly away, still firing their weapons. Kaiden quickly threw a tech mine. This time, it actually worked, sending the husks tumbling to the ground.

"...okay, why did my spell not work when your EMP blast did?" May asked.

Kaiden shook his head. "I don't know. Is now the time to be getting out the magic wands to try to find out?"

May sighed. "I guess not."

Nihilus came back on the radio. "Shepard, this _thing_you gave me isn't listening to me. I ran across someone I want to try to talk to but it won't make me visible."

Shepard frowned. "Will it tell you why?"

"Something about a 'bad machine spirit' that it seems to think is that big ship we saw earlier." Nihiuls said. "Do you get what it's going on about?"

"...not at all." Shepard looked deeply troubled.

Kaiden clarified "When your magic expert says something like that, Nihilus, it's a bit like the bomb disposal guy saying 'uh oh.'"

Everyone stopped to let that sink in, then Nihilus said "...suggestions?"

Shepard took half a second to think about it. "Come back around. Williams, how far is it to the spaceport from here?"

"Two minutes, if we hurry Ma'am," the Gunnery Chief said after doing a quick consult of her commlink.

Shepard nodded. "All right. We'll meet up at the top of the hill there, then move in together."

Nihilus made it to the top of the hill just in time to meet up with the others. Ashley took one look at the Turian in red and black armor and whipped her rifle up in his face. "It's them! It's the -"

"..that's Nihilus Williams, Stand DOWN!" Shepard snapped at her. "Sorry about that. Where's this friend of yours?"

"He.." Nihilus turned to look, but the platform was now covered in Geth. "...he was just over there."

Shepard whispered "Damn," before returning to a normal voice. "I see two possibilities. One, your pal is here on his own. Two...he's with his new friends."

Nihilus looked at May strangely. "What makes you say that?"

"...we didn't hear a shot go off. So either he stealthed deeper into the spaceport..." May pointed out.

"...or the Geth let him in." Nihilus nodded in understanding. "But with this many people we can't take the quiet route."

May nodded. "And we need to stick together. Synthetics can't use magic, but there's no rule against having magic-using allies."

Nihilus grinned. "Got any big mojo to clear that platform out?"

"Not a thing," May said. "Why?"

Nihilus' grin got wider. "I might have just the thing. You can see life signs, right?" When May nodded wordlessly, he unfolded a weapon with a large circular magazine and took careful aim. "Just spot for me..."

xoxoxoxoxox

Saren paced back and forth as the monorail carried him and his Geth towards the port where the Beacon had been carried. Several Geth covered the rear of the car, their pulse rifles charged and ready to fire. He turned to one particularly large Geth with a tilt to his head. "Get the charges ready. I want the colony destroyed. Leave _no_evidence of our involvement behind. Is that und -"

Suddenly, the crack of several explosions in the distance washed over them. Saren turned and pointed his pistol in the direction the blast had come from. "...four grenades?" he asked. "...that seems like overkill. We are clearly dealing with a very dangerous individual. Let's hurry."

xoxoxoxoxox

May Shepard looked at Nihilus incredulously. "Are you telling me Spectres routinely blast the hell out of any building in their way?"

"Only if it will save more lives than it costs. We are above the law, Shepard, and answer only to the Council." Nihilus said. "I normally wouldn't have gone that far, but there is a Prothean Beacon at stake."

Shepard sighed. "I get the picture. Just don't do that again without warning me first."

The squad was standing on another monorail, designed to carry cargo between different parts of the spaceport. There was some minor damage, but nothing to keep it from operating.

May nervously regarded the Turian with the grenade launcher and wondered just how long that would stay true.

The train suddenly jerked to a halt as several Geth popped up from behind crates, opening fire with long-range energy rifles. May ducked behind cover. "Dammit, there's no end to them. I think I've got one more bolt in me..."

"Well, do we have anything that can get up that far?" Ashley asked, flipping out her sniper rifle and unfolding it.

"Not quickly," Kaiden replied.

Nihilus looked at the scene. "Better do it, Shepard. If Saren's involved, he might not decide to wait before he does something...rash."

May nodded and popped her head up again. This time as she started, her eyes crossed slowly and she let out a moan of exertion, her face flushing with the effort of manipulating the mana of the spaceport. The balconies around the monorail stop exploded with arcing electricity, as over a dozen Geth twitched and fell over. Unfortunately, so did Shepard.

"Damn!" Ashley ran to the young woman's side and flipped her over. What she found would probably haunt her for life. While Shepard had the characteristic paleness of a mage suffering from spell drain, she also had a rather broad grin on her face, like she had just enjoyed that. She carefully concealed the woman behind some barriers. "...okay, now what do we do?"

Kaiden brought up his Omni-tool and scanned the area. "Shit! Not done here yet. I'm picking up explosive charges."

"Go." Nihilus ordered. "We'll cover you."

Kaiden started leaping over boxes and low barriers, making his way towards the first bomb. More Geth started peppering the stairs with weapons fire, but Nihilus was true to his word and took each one out with a single shot from his rifle. Kaiden kneeled and started to work on the device while Ashley and Nihilus continued to shoot at one particularly annoying sniper.

"Just how many are there?" Ahsley asked.

Nihilus said "They probably just got this one charge set up, and haven't had time to pull out yet."

Kaiden feverishly examined the circuit. It was a simple enough mechanism, complicated only by a simple trap. Almost exactly like a bomb from an old movie, it could be disabled with a simple re-routing of one microscopic wire. The only problem was, if he picked the wrong wire, it would _probably_just trigger the bomb and blow everyone, plus the beacon, all the way to Earth.

"Just give me...one...second..." Kaiden said

Ashley grinned. "Take all the time you want. Well, as long as the bomb doesn't go up."

Kaiden looked over his shoulder at her. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Nihilus finally got off a clean shot, destroying the last sniper's optic. "Go!"

"Got it!" Kaiden looked at the others. "All right, the bomb's disabled. Let's make our way to the beacon."

"N...not without me..." Shepard said, woozily forcing herself to her feet.

Nihilus looked at her. "May, you look like Hell."

"Or maybe Heaven," Kaiden said. "Though I'm not surprised you can't tell the difference with humans."

Nihilus gulped audibly. "Oh...oh my."

May waved it off. "I'm...it's just the magic that feels like that. I've never really known why. Anyway, I should be...okay in a minute or two. Let's get to that beacon."

xoxoxoxoxox

Magic is categorized into three broad categories. The first, Sorcery, deals with the manipulation of mana on the physical and astral. The second, Conjuring, concerns the manipulation of beings native to the Astral and Metaplanes. The final, Innate, is the province of the Adept and is the art of using the mana generated within to augment the adept's abilities.

In the twenty-third century, approximately one in five people has some innate magical ability. Of those, only one in five develop any ability at all. Only one out of five of _those_fully develop abilities as either a sorcerer, conjuror, or adept. And only one in three of them are fully talented in multiple areas. Overall, one in one thousand metahumans is considered a "Mage-Adept," with full access to Sorcery, Conjuring, and Innate magics.

xoxoxoxoxox

Shepard was the first to look out on the beacon, a strange monolith with circuit-patterend lights pulsing along it in an eerily glowing green. It was so fascinating to look at she almost missed a cybered Turian stepping onto a small Geth ship. "Weapons free!" she shouted, triggering her squad to unleash a hail of gunfire towards the ship.

The turian didn't even flinch, while two Geth spun around and started firing to cover the ship's escape. They kept shooting until the ship had taken off into the atmosphere. "Joker!" May called into her radio. "Can you track that ship that just left?"

Joker's voice came back. "Negative, Commander. Too much jamming. They're gone."

May sighed. "Right. At least we've gotten to the beacon. Send in a recovery team."

"You've got it. _Normandy_out." Joker said.

Ashley looked at the beacon for the first time since it had been moved. "Wow...that wasn't doing anything like that back at the dig site."

"I've got a bad feeling about this..." Nihilus said, while Kaiden approached the thing.

"Maybe we can shut it down..." Kaiden said, starting to tap at his Omni-tool.

Unfortunately, it chose that moment to do a little more than glow ominously. Kaiden found himself literally swept off his feet as a pulse of energy knocked the others down. May was the first to her feet, charging at Kaiden and knocking him out of the way. Unfortunately for her, that left her in the monolith's grip instead, being lifted helplessly off the ground.

She began to see things, alien images that her mind struggled to comprehend. An organic, being torn apart even as it tried desperately to do...something. Screaming, agony, being ripped apart by talons of fire and cold, unfeeling metal. Circuits, stars, a word, a sentence. Jumbles of meaningless facts and concrete metaphors.

Shepard screamed as the beacon continued to flood her mind, before she was flung away from the beacon against a wall. No one present would ever be sure whether it was the beacon or the impact that had knocked her out.

xoxoxoxoxox

FAB - Fluorescing Astral Bacteria. An Awakened variety of fungus that, when an astral form passes through it, begins glowing. Its' development in the early years of the Awakening was hailed as a security breakthrough, which led to two more developments. FAB-II, a strain that could be grown into solid astral walls, provided a cheap method of securing a site against astral inspection and intrusion. FAB-III, however, was created as a magical bioweapon, which drained magic from an area. Upon its' first use in Chicago, FAB research was quickly reclassified as WMD deveopment and shelved.

During the early years of FTL exploration, however, science dusted off its' old notes and produced something new. FAB-IV is a harmless, airborne bacteria that, when introduced at a steady rate into a ship's life-support system can provide enough backround mana for magic users to access their abilities. While expensive, it's useful enough to see use on Alliance warships and space stations where Awakened personnel are regularly needed.

xoxoxoxoxox

May gripped her head wordlessly as Doctor Chakwas, an aging blonde woman, gently brushed some hair out of her eyes. "Shepard. How are you feeling?"

May glanced at her, rubbing her forehead. "Like I just came back from an astral journey without enough weed."

"I thought recreational drugs were forbidden by the Alliance," Nihilus interjected with amusement, leaning against a wall in the corner.

"They are," Chakwas said acidly. "Except for 'legitimate religious purposes' which means the Commander here gets a free pass on limited quantities."

May shook her head. "Doc, I've been assigned here for two weeks and I only had a few shots of whiskey from my private stash. I hardly _abuse_it which is what you people are so afraid of." She shook her head. "What happened to the beacon?"

"Destroyed," Nihilus said. "When you pushed Alenko out of the way it grabbed you, then overloaded. I put it in my report. It shouldn't count against you...too much."

"Well, regardless...physically, you're fine, but I noticed some unusual neural activity," Chakwas started to read off the report. "There was also a lot of rapid eye movement, normally associated with dreaming. Did you see anything?"

Shepard took a moment to compose herself. "Something...two species fighting. Some kind of great war. One side lost. It was some kind of message or warning, but nothing specific enough to nail it down. I could make out a few words...maybe if I could actually speak Prothean it would make more sense..."

"...hmm...better add this to my report," Chakwas looked up suddenly. "Oh, Captain,"

Anderson seemed worried as he stepped into the medbay. "How's our XO holding up?"

"Well, on the whole I'd say she's going to be fine." Chakwas replied. "Though there are a few more tests I would like to run, just to be sure."

"It may have to wait a bit." Anderson said. "I'd like to speak to the Commander and Nihilus. In private."

"Of course," Chakwas headed to the door. "I'll be just outside if you need me."

She left, and May laid back on the bed, massaging her temples. Anderson looked her over. "You sure you're all right, Commander?"

"I'll be fine tomorrow. What happened to Williams?" May forced herself to sit up, leaning against the wall.

"Lieutenant Alenko vouched for her skills, so I've had her transferred to the Normandy," Anderson said.

"Good. She's a good soldier, even if we do have enough people with big guns with Nihilus around." May grinned. "Good gunbunny's always welcome." She shook her head, wincing. "Too bad we didn't get any warning on the possibility of Geth, but..."

Nihilus looked at her. "Shepard, no one's seen Geth outside the veil since before Earthers turned up on the scene. It couldn't be expected, and you will have to get used to handling that."

May chuckled. "Old habits. When you survive, you get to complain about that stuff, just as long as you don't do it in front of the Johnson. I apologize."

Anderson sighed and turned to look out the door, apparently unable to meet the eyes of either his XO or the Spectre in the room. "...this is bad. A disaster, even. The beacon's destroyed, the Geth are invading, and Saren's gone rogue."

Nihilus' mandibles twitched very slightly as he narrowed his eyes. "Captain, we don't know that. Saren's a living legend, one of the best. I will admit I don't find his specism that admirable, but we're going to need more than that..."

"The Council is going to want answers..." Anderson argued.

Nihilus shook his head. "I won't do more than say Saren was on Eden Prime. It looks suspicious, but.."

"Are you sure that's all, Nihilus?" Anderson looked at May. "Shepard, did you see anything?"

"...a vision...a bit like a nightmare, really. Synthetics, slaughtering...something." was all she could say to that.

"We need to report this to the Council." Anderson said.

May raised an eyebrow. "The girl with a history of using mind-altering substances in safe quantities says she has a bad dream, and you want to tell it to the heads of galactic civilization? David Anderson, please."

"I'm afraid Shepard is right, Captain," Nihilus said, standing next to the girl. "We need something solid before we start throwing accusations around."

"I've already talked to the Ambassador abo-" Anderson began, but he was stopped when May Shepard slapped her forehead into her hands.

"Captain," May mumbled into her hand. "Please, _please_tell me that you have absolutely no personal connection to Saren and you've just been making statements based on his reputation and logic..."

"...I don't see what that has to do -" Anderson once again found himself being interrupted as May ignored him and looked to Nihilus.

"Okay...okay..." She started making nervous sweeping gestures with her hands. "I think maybe I can fix this...just...I need to buy some time."

"Stall the Council, May?" Nihilus raised a brow. "That won't be easy, you realize."

May nodded. "We need to find some evidence...something solid. We don't have anything linking him to the Geth yet, just his being on Eden Prime..."

"What about this - " Anderson tried to get a word into the conversation.

May fixed him with a glare. "Not _now_Captain, we're working."

Nihilus shrugged. "...this is why I wanted her," He pointed out, before turning back to the blonde in front of him. "What about this 'bad machine spirit' your...thing talked about?"

"You barely believe in magic yourself," May said. "Is the Council really going to buy it?"

Nihilus replied "True enough. Maybe we can argue his mind might not be his own, at least get a suspension from duty."

May frowned. "That might work depending on what they know, but I never saw Saren up close. I wouldn't be able to tell if he was being magically influenced without that." She took a deep breath. "Get me into that meeting. We'll play it by ear, and maybe I can convince the Council to let us investigate Saren."

Anderson coughed. "I'll see what I can do."

xoxoxoxoxox

May left the sickbay a few hours later. On seeing Kaiden she smiled and walked over. "Hey, how you holding up?"

"I'm doing about as well as can be expected," he answered. "Losing Jenkins hit everyone pretty hard."

May sighed. "Nothing we could have done. Sometimes, shit just happens. And sometimes people throw away an old trick 'cuz no one uses it anymore. And those are the best tricks to pull out."

"...I'll remember that." Kaiden coughed. "Still, this is all going downhill fast. We lost the beacon and one of the Council's best was seen at the scene of the crime. They're not going to be happy."

May smiled. "Well, it seems like you've been around. Career man?"

"Yes Ma'am." Kaiden grinned. With half a shrug, he clarified. "Most Biotics are. We're not restricted like your kind were back around the Awakening, but the Alliance sure keeps track of us. With the choice being to go Corporate or get a paycheck from the Alliance, most of us take the military option. Alliance can't just put you in an isolation cell to study you."

"Yeah, things haven't been the same since the Corporate War, but some things didn't change that really should have," May sighed. "Ah well."

"Joker tells me we're headed for the Citadel, Ma'am. Care to tell me what that's about?"

May looked at him. "The Captain made a very stupid mistake. He let his personal feelings get in the way, and now Nihilus and I are going to have to clean up his mess before we can get to the bottom of this."

"...pretty harsh language, Commander." Kaiden commented. "You probably shouldn't say that out loud."

May smirked. "I probably shouldn't, but it's true." She glanced off into a corner, noting someone putting her gear into a spare locker. "...we'll chat later."

"Sure thing Commander." Kaiden turned back to his meal while May sashayed over to the newest member of her squad.

"Ahh...reporting for duty, Ma'am..." Ashley snapped to a salute, prompting May to laugh.

"Stand down, Williams. Not here to harass you for not sticking to protocol." She grinned. "How you holding up? Need help settling in?"

Ashley winced. "Just...feeling a little guilty, Ma'am. If Jenkins hadn't died, I might not be here."

May looked the lieutenant over carefully. "Williams, care to tell me something?"

Ashley looked puzzled. "Of course."

"Where does a ground-pounding grunt, even a Gunnery Chief, rate the kind of cyber I'm pretty sure you're packing?" May said seriously. "I'm spotting, at the least, a very high-quality eye replacement, muscle enhancements, reflex boosters and probably with the prepwork for more speed enhancements, and an internal link and tool. Probably also a tactical control system,"

Ashley nearly dropped her sack in shock. "You can tell all that just by looking?"

"Yep." May smirked. "Of course, astral eyes helps, but it doesn't take that to see you're not the factory floor model. So what gives? You've got a whole ton of hardware, and not one bit of it is visible to the naked eye..."

"...I don't like to talk about it, Ma'am, but it's been hell getting promoted," Ashley looked around nervously. "Usually my immediate CO was willing to get me a bit of under-the-table work done instead to try to keep things quiet so I wouldn't make too much fuss about not getting a pay raise. It's all legit and technically on the books, but it wasn't always according to proper procedure."

May just grinned. "That's okay. Jenkins...he was a good kid, did everything right...probably would have made a hell of an N-forcer one day. But for me, that's not enough. I _know_I'm going to sound callous saying this, but I prefer someone with skills over just the best package. I think that's going to be you, Ash. So, what do you say, welcome to the team?"

"Aye aye, Ma'am." Ash saluted, eliciting another musical laugh.

"And maybe later I can show you my quarters?" May smiled and leaned in close.

Ashley coughed in response. "Uhh...wouldn't that be fraternization, Ma'am?"

"...drat." May pouted. "Kaiden said the same thing when we were first assigned to the ship."

xoxoxoxoxox

May walked up to the Normandy's cockpit and sat herself down casually in the co-pilot's seat as the ship came out of the Mass Effect relay into Citadel space. "Hey, Joker. Heard we'd be pulling into the Citadel soon."

"Right you are, Commander. Here, take your first look," Joker pulled into a standard holding pattern while Kaiden and Ashley came up behind them.

One particular ship drew everyone's attention. Designed to look like a simple cross, the central 'eye' was actually a bit similar to the Geth drones, with sweeping wings forming each of the four lines of the cross and a massive, glowing gun in the center. "The _Destiny Ascension_, flagship of the Citadel fleet," Kaiden explained.

"Look at the size of that thing!" Ashley said in awe.

Joker tried to feign indifference. "Yeah, well, size isn't everything."

May smirked at him. "A bit jealous, Joker?"

"Just saying, you need firepower too..." Joker flew past the Ascension.

Ashley shook her head. "Just look at the main gun on that thing. It could rip through the barriers on any ship in the Alliance fleet!"

May tuned out as Joker linked up with the ship's controls and started negotiating with the towers via VR linkup. The Citadel itself, a giant station in space. Literally miles long, with four arms that could fold in or out, all around a central ring. May reviewed what she knew...which wasn't much. Just that no one knew who had built it (though it was presumed to be the Protheans) and it was big enough, and populated enough, to generate its' own mana sphere without FAB.

And she couldn't wait to see what it had to offer.

xoxoxoxoxox

Nihilus quickly disembarked from the Normandy after she had pulled into dock. He took the elevator down to C-Sec and quickly logged into his account there. "All right...the Saren investigation is being handled by...Vakarian? Figures." He quickly went up to the man's office.

Garrus Vakarian was a very frustrated Turian. All around him his terminal projected screens, filled with mission reports, pictures, interviews. All of it heavily redacted. "Come on...come on...I've only got a few minutes."

"Trouble, Garrus?" Nihilus strode into the office.

"Nihilus!" Garrus closed the screens with a gesture. "I'm glad you're here. I'm not making any progress on this Saren investigation."

Nihilus sighed. "Not giving you clearance for the files?"

"I'm afraid not, and all of it's classified. Do you think maybe..." Garrus said leadingly.

Nihilus shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Garrus."

"Damn." Garrus slammed his hand into the desk. "There's a pattern here. He's dropping off the map too much. But there's only so much I can do on my own."

Nihilus smiled. "I wouldn't worry too much. I brought someone _very_interesting. If anyone can manage to get the Council to let us keep going on this, it's her."

May leaned against the railing of the Earth Embassy, looking out across the Presidium. All made of white metal and plastics, with trees and a gigantic artificial lake, the whole district screamed money and taste. Soldiers, even famous ones, weren't the norm up here, just the best of C-Sec, Spectres, and people who screwed up royally enough for the Council to want to personally rake them across the coals. May idly wondered whether that described her, or if the Council still wanted to make her a Spectre.

"This is an _outrage!_" Ambassador Udina shouted at the three holograms in his office. "The Council would intervene if the Geth had attacked a _Turian_colony!"

"The Turians do not found colonies on the edge of the Terminus systems, Ambassdor," A Salarian countered.

The Asari couldn't resist adding "Humanity was well aware of the risks when it went into the Traverse."

"What about Saren? You can't just ignore a rogue Spectre! I demand ACTION!" Udina was very nearly spiting at the Council holograms.

"You don't get to make 'demands' of the Council, Ambassador," the third Councilor, a Turian, said with a deceptive mildness.

The Asari decided to play peacemaker again. "Citadel Security is already investigating your accusations, Ambassador. We will discuss their findings at the meeting, not before."

May Shepard just stared at the exchange,aghast at the ambasador's behavior. When the holograms signed off, he spun on Anderson. "Ahh...Captain Anderson. I see you brought half your crew with you."

"Just my ground team from Eden Prime," the captain replied. "In case you had any questions."

Udina looked May in the eye. "I have the mission reports. I assume they're accurate,"

May sighed. "I left out a few details about what I specifically saw when the Beacon started to transfer information to me. I didn't want to alarm anyone any more than necessary until we know more about what it means."

Udina took a step back from her in surprise. "...Commander Shepard?"

"Yes, Ambassador." May smiled at him. "I'm grateful you managed to secure us a chance to speak with the Council."

"...they were not happy about it." Udina said to her.

May sighed. "Well, yes. I would rather have had more time to investigate, but the Captain went off and now Nihilus and I are in damage control mode,"

Udina eyed her carefully. "I see. This could make my job easier or harder, depending."

"To be perfectly honest..." May said. "Right now, I'm not positive Saren _has_gone rogue. In my gut, I'm pretty sure, but without proof, our chances at the meeting are not good. Nihilus is off doing a few discreet inquiries."

Kaiden and Ashley were also in the office, but they couldn't really find anything to say. Ashley kept waiting for Anderson, who was clearly coming to a slow boil, to flip his top while Kaiden just shook his head. He had never seen Shepard acting like this before, but he could tell the Ambassador was falling for every carefully-chosen line.

"...do you have any suggestions on how to proceed, Commander?" Udina asked.

May bit her lip gently. "I just need some time...I have one idea, so when I get a chance to speak, _whatever I say_don't stop me, all right?"

Udina looked at her nervously. "If...you're quite sure. The meeting is in one hour. I'll meet you there."

May Shepard smiled. "So, I've got an hour to spare, huh?"

Udina grumbled back irritably. "Yes, yes, go do whatever it is you do."

Anderson went from fuming at having the conversation taken from him to staring in horror at the Ambassador.

Kaiden Alenko watched as Shepard's eyes took on a mischevious gleam.

Ashley Williams blinked and looked between the pair.

"See ya in an hour!" May grinned and vaulted, one-handed, over the railing and launched herself into the Presidium.

Anderson snapped at his soldiers. "Alenko! There are several bars on the Presidium, check them all out. Williams! The Asari Consort is just across the reservoir. Get over there and make sure she doesn't try to show up unannounced!"

Kaiden snapped off a quick salute. "Aye aye, sir!"

Ashley blinked in confusion, then slowly it dawned on her. "Wait, she's _that_Commander Shepard!"

Udina slowly realized his mistake. "Oh god, no. She'll ruin the reputation of the entire species and I gave her permission to do it."

"We'll catch her, Ambassador." Anderson said soothingly. "Even May Shepard can only cause so much chaos in one hour."

xoxoxoxoxox

Ashley looked around uncomfortably. The room's walls were the same as everything else in the Presidium, but that was the only thing that was the same. A number of large planters had been placed around the small room, with green bushes trying vainly to give the impression of a well-maintained garden. Low couches were spread about, giving a more homey impression, but not by much.

But that wasn't what was putting Ashley off the place. Everywhere she looked, there was an Asari, wearing a vest wide open in the front, with only a bit of strings and cloth covering her torso and leading down to a long, floor-length dress. There was even a human woman, wearing the same uniform.

"Miss? Uhh, Miss?" An Asari poked her in the shoulder, making her jump and turn around.

"Ahh!" Ashley yelped, and took in a deep breath. I'm sorry. I was looking for..."

"The Consort, yes? I'm afraid Sha'ira is a very busy woman..." The Asari said.

Ashley blushed. "No, that's not it, I - "

"Oh!" The secretary smiled and tapped at her console. "Well, you're free to speak with one of her assistants, for a much smaller fee. That...might actually be better for you." The woman looked at Ashley's insignia. "I'm afraid the Consort's services are very expensive, Chief."

"Ahhh." Ashley tried again, turning beet red.

The Secretary frowned a bit. "Well...if you're sure..." She tapped at the console. "What was your name?"

"Ashley Williams..." she said back, a little flustered.

The secretary smiled. "All right. I've penciled you in. You should hear something in...oh...three or four months."

Ashley was actually stunned out of her embarassment. "A four month waiting list for..."

"Ah, yes, Sha'ira is quite busy..." The secretary said.

"Uhm..." Ashley said. "Thank you, but that really isn't why I'm here. You see, I was looking for someone who might have shown up here. About my height, human, blonde hair, slightly slanty eyes and cream-colored skin? She would have had a pair of chemical slugthrowers on her."

"Hmmm," the Secretary thought that over for a moment. "I don't remember anyone with any antique weapons on her coming in."

"Would you check? Her name is May Shepard," Ashley pressed.

The secretary looked down at her appointment book. "Ah, yes, Miss Shepard. She's expressed interest in our services before, and made a substantial payment to secure an immediate session when she could come. But I'm afraid she hasn't been in today. Are you serving with her?" When Ashley nodded faintly, the Secretary positively beamed at her. "Well, if you could let her know that I think Sha'ira might be able to make an hour or so in her schedule tomorrow?"

"...uhh...yeah, sure..." Ashley nodded faintly to that. "Uhm...would it be all right if I just hung around, to make sure?"

The secretary looked over Ashley's heavy armor. "Well, not looking like that." She clapped her hands, and two girls put their arms around her. "Please, if you could give Miss Williams something appropriate to wear while she waits for her friend? We don't want to scare any of our other visitors."

Ashley was dragged off into hell.

xoxoxoxoxox

A 'Shadowrunner' is a slang term for an elite class of criminal. While organized crime syndicates abound, and are even more prolific i

a galactic economy, the 'Shadowrunner' is typically either a lone agent or a member of a small team for hire. During what is now known as the "Golden Corporate Age" on Earth, shadowrunners were a staple of the various covert actions corporations took against each other and the Earth governments. In the modern age the need for shadowrunners has diminished sharply, but they do still exist.

The 'runner' who lives to retirement age is a very rare thing, and every one of them is dangerous.

xoxoxoxoxox

May Shepard wandered along the Presidium, looking for something in particular. She noticed a small, unmarked door and glanced around before wandering in. Inside was a small, rounded creature in a snug environmental suit. "Ahh...one of the Earth Clan. You are known as Commander Shepard, yes? It is an honor to welcome the Hero of the Blitz."

"Ah, you know who I am?" May smiled at him. "I wasn't aware I was that much in the public eye. Going to have to do something about that."

The Volus, for that was what the creature was, seemed to smile at her. Though it was impossible to know for sure. "My job makes it important for me to keep informed. I am a financial advisor to a great many important individuals here on the Citadel. When someone as important as you arrives on the station, I take notice."

May nodded, and closed and locked the door behind her. "You must be Barla Von then?"

"Indeed." The volus looked straight at her. "And what would a war hero happen to know about a lowly finance expert."

"I hear you can keep certain aspects of a person's finances...out of the public record, let us say?" May asked.

Barla regarded her for a moment. "There is absolutely nothing shady about what I do. Everything is done completely within the bounds of interstellar law. However, many of my clients have need of...discretion."

May laughed. "Who said I minded if it's a little on the shadowy side. I have some private accounts on Earth that I could stand to have converted and made available. If I gave you the account numbers, could you keep my bosses from realizing I had those funds?"

Barla Von regarded her for a moment. "As long as these accounts are not involved in illegal interstellar trade. Though I do not work for mere percentage. My flat fees will cost you substantially."

"I'm aware of the fees," May replied. "You can take them from the accounts in question."

Barla Von seemed satisfied. "Some day, you will have to tell me how a mere Commander in the Alliance earns enough money to require my services."

May shrugged. "Start early enough in life, make smart investments, get a little lucky, and maybe sleep with the right person or two and you can end up a trillionaire. Not that I've done _that_well but close enough."

"So it goes, I suppose..." Barla Von started getting to work as May listed off some account numbers for him.

xoxoxoxoxox

While many types of magic are commonly classified as 'Corrupted' or 'Threats' by academia and the united Earth governments, none is so feared as the Insect Spirit. An astral predator, they exist solely to expand their numbers on the physical plane.

This by itself would be enough of a problem since Earth is already home to almost ten billion sentient life forms, but their methodology requires the 'implanting' of the spirit within a metahuman host. This process is inevitably fatal to the human.

Insect spirits in fully manifested form resemble metahuman-sized versions of their base insect species.

xoxoxoxoxox

Nihilus stepped out of the C-Sec elevator onto the Presidium. Normally, he wouldn't have taken any special notice of the two humans passing, but something they said caught his attention. "She was still at Delan's when I last checked."

Nihilus quickly ran through the possibilities. He knew May's dossier fairly well, since he had chosen to recruit her. While the Hanar had sold him some top-line mods in the past, he knew that that wasn't all the shop had. In fact, it was equipped with its' own micro-fabricator, and it was equipped with production licenses from thousands of manufacturers from all across the galaxy. You could pretty much get anything that you could carry out the door from the place, as long as it didn't need a license.

"...which makes it her first stop if she wants to make an impression on the Council." Nihilus slapped his forehead and made his way around the Presidium, making a note to investigate the screech of protest coming from the Consort's hall when he had the time.

What he found when he rounded the corner didn't surprise him. He knew, if he'd seen it before he had met the commander he probably wouldn't have wanted to believe it, but he wasn't surprised now.

Shepard was no longer wearing her improvised combat uniform. Instead, she had switched to a bright green minidress that came down halfway past her thighs, and was a little too tight to be considered for a serious meeting on its' own. However, she had augmented it with a long, white vest suggestive of a feather cloak that added a hint of elegance, gold bracers, and a low one-inch heel that she could likely still move easily in. Nihilus spotted the two chemical slugthrowers she favored easily enough, but he was surprised that her Alliance-issue sidearm was also present, in a concealed holster. "Shepard! What are you doing?"

May looked up from her negotiations with the Hanar. "Nihilus, what are you talking about? I've got twenty minutes."

"It's closer to five," Nihilus said. "You _know_the elevators here!"

May blinked. "Dammit! They_ are_ all like that." She looked to the hanar. "Uhm, look, can you have the rest of this stuff delivered to the _Normandy_?" She paused for a second. "Actually, better yet. We're gonna need a headquarters that isn't an Alliance warship. I don't suppose you can arrange a hotel here on the Presidium for a ten-percent commission on the room?"

The Hanar looked surprised, or at least its' luminescent spots flared in a manner that suggested such. "This one has seen your funds, and believes it could be done."

"Thank you so much!" May bowed, a gesture the Aliens might have pegged as Japanese if either had sufficent grounding in Earth cultures to make the connection. "I'll be back later for some more."

"This one thanks you for your business, and sincerely hopes for your safe return, Shepard." Delan said.

Once they were away from the Emporium, jogging along to try to make the elevator, Nihilus gave the disguised elf a sidelong look. "I can understand not wanting to meet the Council in that combat uniform, but why not an Alliance dress uniform?"

May shrugged as she jogged, a rather impressive-looking feat. "Because I'm gonna need everything I've got for the investigation. That includes looking like you fit in. I also had some other arrangements to make."

"Confident, aren't you?" Nihilus hit the button on the elevator.

May shrugged in response. "I'm probably on my way out of the military anyway, if that happens. I'm a useful PR iinstrument, but the higher ups are getting tired of my 'bad habits' and I'm getting tired of getting chewed out for them. Got some money saved up, may as well live here for a bit, then see what happens."

Nihilus laughed. "Well, that would be a waste of your talents. Maybe I could get you some kind of work."

"Eh, whatever you need, Nihilus," May smiled at him. "I think I can count on you not to betray my trust." And it was just then that she turned around, and saw her first Keeper. An insectoid creature, about the size of a human, it was equipped with a small technicians backpack and was clearly making adjustments to a panel near the Citadel's VI system.

Shepard took one look at the beast, and instantly snapped into high alert. "Nihilus, down!" Her hands did not go for the Alliance weapon, but to her slugthrowers, whipping them both out in a smooth motion to reveal the intricate engraving in full for the first time. She had just leveled the two weapons at the insect when Nihilus tackled her to the ground. "What the HELL are you doing, man! That's a mantis spirit!"

Nihilus forcibly restrained her, surprised to find the much more lithe woman was actually struggling with enough might that she might dislodge him in a few moments. "May, calm down! That is a Keeper. They've been on the station for thousands of years, and the only time anyone's gotten hurt around one is when someone tries to interfere with them...like shooting them with badly outdated weapons."

May continued to struggle for a few moments before what Nihilus said broke through her instincts. She calmed herself with a visible effort, and looked very closely at the creature. "...Keeper, not Insect Spirit...Keeper, not..._those..._" she mumbled under her breath, then she sighed. "I'm...I'm sorry. I'll be okay, that just spooked me."

Nihilus let her up, and she slowly got to her feet. "I should have warned you. A number of other humans have had that same reaction to seeing their first Keeper."

"...it's all right." May took another deep breath. "Let's just get to that meeting."

They rode the elevator in silence, then walked along the long hallway towards the Council platform at a somewhat slower pace.

Anderson glared at them when they got in place. "Where have you two _been_? The hearing's already started."

"Slight misunderstanding with a Keeper, Captain." May said. "Won't happen again,"

They made it up the steps just in time to hear the Council begin passing their verdict. "The Geth attack is a matter of some concern, but there is no evidence to indicate Saren was involved in the attack directly."

May decided to gently interrupt at this point. "I apologize for being late, Councilors," she said. "Maybe I missed a few things, but can we go over it again? Did the C-Sec investigation turn up anything?"

"No," the Turian responded simply. May finally took note of a tall red hologram being projected to one side. It showed a heavily cybered Turian in very unusual heavy armor. May couldn't identify the manufacturer off hand.

"I resent these accusations," Saren began, looking down. "Nihilus, I'm hurt. I know we have not always seen eye-to-eye on certain matters, but I have always thought of you as a friend,"

Nihilus couldn't meet Saren's eye. "I consider you one too, but what I saw on Eden Prime was...enough to worry me."

"So here we are," Saren said "Captain Anderson, as well. It seems all my enemies are showing themselves in public...so _this_must be the famous Commander Shepard. I must say, the humans have sent someone who seems particularly unimpressive this time." He looked down at her, and their eyes met.

May didn't rise to the bait. "Nihilus did say he saw you on Eden Prime. What were you doing there?"

"I was...in the area," Saren said. "I wasn't on a particular assignment, and I had heard my old friend Captain Anderson had arranged for another bite at the apple for his species. And I must say, if this is the best he can do, your species has a lot to learn. You're not ready to join the Council. You're not even ready to join the Spectres."

Again, May didn't choose to dignify that with a response, but unfortunately Udina did. "He has no right to say that! That is not his decision!"

The Asari councilor, quickly realizing that the meeting was getting out of control, adopted a conciliatory tone. "Commander Shepard's induction into the Spectres is not the purpose of this meeting,"

"This meeting _has_no purpose," Saren sneered. "The humans are wasting your time, and mine,"

"I agree," May said simply. Saren's mandibles fluttered wildly in shock and his eyes widened. "If it had been my decision, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But -" May said, very deliberately "Since we are here, let's take a look at the facts as they were clearly presented to me for a second. An unknown force, apparently Geth in design, attacks Eden Prime. With no significant magical assets, the invading force is clearly meant to be non-Earther in nature. And then, a Turian, wearing armor and with a cybernetic suite that was clearly designed by the same person or persons behind the drones, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Saren here, close enough that his old protege identifies him _as_Saren from a reasonable distance, appears on the scene and may or may not have left with the Geth,"

May smiled. "Tell me, Saren. Where did you get those mods from? They're very...distinctive."

Saren looked at her. "My cybernetics are a custom design, from several different manufacturers. All of which I am a stakeholder in and all of which is completely legal and a matter of public record."

"I fail to see how this is relevant, Commander," the Turian snapped at her.

The Salarian spoke "I have to agree, Commander. What are you getting at?"

"What I am getting at, is that clearly the crew of the Normandy and Nihilus were meant to come to the conclusion that Saren had led the attack. To come to that conclusion, even though he hadn't."

The whole chamber was quiet. Anderson looked as if he had been punched in the stomach. Nihilus was incredulous, Udina stunned speechless. The Council quickly tapped furiously at their consoles...

And Saren, though it was difficult to tell with the low-resolution on the hologram, looked like he was about ready to panic. "Tha-tha-tha..." he tried to speak, but no sound came out of his mouth.

May pressed on, having given it a moment to sink in. "Now, I understand that Nihilus' sponsoring me as a Spectre candidate still stands. If I may, I'd like to propose that the next phase in that testing be a simple one. I, with Nihilus and my crew assisting, will resume the cancelled C-Sec investigation. We'll find what we were meant to find, and hopefully, prove Saren's innocence."

The Council all stared at her. The Asari glanced sidelong at the other two. "Very well, Shepard. You may proceed with the investigation,"

"And, as a formality only," the Salarian interjected "Perhaps we should suspend Saren's status as a Spectre. Temporarily of course. It wouldn't be . . . appropriate for him to retain full rank and privilege while under such an investigation."

The Turian looked like he had eaten a lemon. "Agreed,"

The Asari finally made the declaration. "Commander Shepard, you will be temporarily accorded the full rights associated with the position with the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance unit. However, be aware that you are _not_yet above the law, and you will be held accountable for your actions when the mission is over."

"Thank you, Councilor." May smiled. "I won't abuse your trust."

xoxoxoxoxox

"Shepard, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Anderson slammed his hand down on the table. "You made us both look like absolute fools in there! I know we cut you a lot of slack, but this is just too much!" He threw his arms around, gesturing to the entire room wildly. "And _this_. A luxury suite?"

And it was. In an area where space was hideously expensive, the hanar had managed to find May a hotel room that bore more resemblance to the furnished condominum of an elite than a place to crash and store things for a few days. Most of the furnishings were inlaid with gold, tasteful paintings decorated the walls, and the entire living room was dominated by an entertainment center that looked suspiciously like the Normandy's top-of-the-line navigation map. Couches were arranged around the thing, with a glass panel allowing it to do double duty as a table. Five doors led away from the central chamber, Anderson presumed bedrooms for May and the squad.

May sighed. "Look, we needed a place on the Citadel itself. I don't want to be seen going back and forth between an Alliance warship. There's a time for guns blazing, and a time for discretion. This is definitely the latter, and you two," she glared at Udina "Were charging ahead like a pair of dragons fighting over a gold coin. Someone had to stop you from derailing this whole thing."

Udina growled "You made the whole Earth sphere look like a laughingstock!"

"Did I?" May smiled at him. "It seems to me that I salvaged that entire meeting. Saren's suspended, and we've got a chance to put him away for good. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Both men stared at her for several seconds. May smiled as she let that sink in, then continued. "Now, let me think. Who was in charge of the C-Sec investigation?"

Nihilus came out of his room, having changed from his armor into something slightly less threatening. "A high-ranking C-Secer named Garrus Vakarian. He's good at his job, but he's a bit of a maverick. He probably didn't take being removed from the case too well, so he's off on his own."

"I have a contact in C-Sec by the name of Harkin," Udina recovered his voice. "He might know where you can find Garrus."

Anderson shook his head. "Forget it. He's a boozer, worse than you. I won't waste my time with that loser,"

"...Captain," May sighed, obviously not wanting to say this. "I don't know what your personal history with Saren is, and right now isn't the time to go into it. I'll ask once the investigation is done. But whatever it is, Saren will use it against any evidence we try to bring up."

"She's right, Captain." Udina said. "Besides, if this goes well, we're going to have work to do. I'll need your help to set everything up." He forced himself off the couch. "Meet me in my office later." The dwarven ambassador made his way out of the room.

May stood up and went over to a panel in the room. "Can I get you anything, Captain? Soda, maybe a drink? Delan's pretty good at this stuff, I can afford it."

"No, thank you." Anderson replied, and May shrugged and poured herself a tall glass of some chilled beverage.

"Got any other leads?" she asked him, taking a sip.

Nihilus eyed her beverage choice. "I do hope that's not what I think it is."

May sighed. "It is. Too bad it doesn't work on elves."

"...we'll find out in a few minutes," Nihilus commented.

Anderson coughed. "There is one other thing you can try. There's a banker named Barla Von here on the Presidium. He's an agent of the Shadow Broker."

May nodded. "Actually, I was going to try him first, but thanks for the tip." She tapped at her Omni-tool. "Dammit, I sent those two a message an hour ago to meet us here, where are they?"

Just then, the hotel door opened. Ashley Williams was standing in the doorway, her armor and weapons slung in a bag over her shoulder, wearing the uniform of the Asari Consort's assistants. May grinned. "Ah, there you are Williams. Like your off-duty fashion sense."

Ashley flushed and growled at the same time. "Where were you, Commander? I was just...ugh, I don't want to talk about it."

May rolled her eyes. "Seriously, you sent her after me, Captain? I thought you trusted me more tha -"

The door opened again, and Kaiden was standing unsteadily on the other side. He was still dressed, even if he looked ready to be fitted for a lampshade. "oohhhh...there you are Shhhepard. Been looking alll over for you."

May raised an eyebrow. "And just how many bottles of beer did you look in the bottom _of_?"

"Well, I wash checking out the barsh like the Captain shaid..." Kaiden slurred. "But ya gotta be polite, right? Sho I ordered a drink, and took half of it and then told the barkeep what I wash lookin' for, a hot elf. But you were never there, Commander...so I had ta keep lookin."

May sighed. "All right, LT, let's get you to bed." She stood up. "It's getting late anyway, Why don't we turn in for the night? And no offense, but I'd like to ask you to stay here. You're not trained for this kind of thing, and you'd draw too much attention. Stay suited up in case I need backup. Captain, you're welcome to join us tonight."

"No, thank you." Anderson stood up. "I'll speak with Udina, then head back to the Normandy. You can find me in one of those two places if you need me."

xoxoxoxoxox

The next morning May went down to her new banker's office. She strode in with the confidence of someone who could buy the place - or shoot it apart without anybody caring. Barla simply took this in stride. "Ah, Shepard. I trust there isn't anything wrong with our arrangements?"

"Not at all," May smiled. "I'm just told you know a lot about what's going on on the Citadel. By reliable sources."

"I might," the Volus said. "It would, of course, depend on just how large the fees for my services should be...and what you're asking about."

"A Spectre. Famous one." May sat on the edge of her desk. "I think you know who."

"You're right, Shepard. I do know about Saren." Barla's lips twisted up into a little smile behind the visor of his suit. "And these are exceptional circumstances. Saren has done something very stupid, so this information. . . . will not come with any charge."

"...Saren betrayed the Shadow Broker?" May raised an eyebrow. "That's not a good move for anyone's long term health."

"Indeed," Barla Von looked up at her. "I believe he has hired a Krogan mercenary to. . . deal with the situation. A mercenary by the name of Urdnot Wrex. He was last seen paying a visit to Citadel Security. If you hurry, you might catch him."

"Thanks. Take an extra one percent anyway." May stood up and walked out of the office.

xoxoxoxoxox

May decided to take a quick pass through the markets on her way to Chora's Den. She made sure to pick up some vendor licenses from one of the kiosks as she was passing by when a blond man caught her attention. He seemed to be jumping up and down with excitement on seeing her, and her worst fears were confirmed when he walked right up to her. "Wow, Commander Shepard! The hero of Eden Prime! It really is you."

"Uhm, thank you, I'm honored, but I'm really in a hurry..." May held up her hands, trying to quickly duck around the man, only to find her progress blocked.

"My name's Verner. Conrad Verner. They say you killed more than a hundred Geth on Eden Prime!" May groaned inwardly as people started to take notice of her.

She tried again. "Pleased to meet you. It wasn't that big a deal, but I really do have to..."

Conrad cut her off, as if he wasn't even listening. "Hey, I know you're busy, but if it's not too much trouble, could I get an autograph?"

May decided that it was the best way to get rid of him fast. "All right." She took the quickly proffered paper and quickly signed her name in a flowing signature.

"Thanks. I know you're busy, but my wife will really be impressed." Conrad started to rush off. "Oh, and next time you're on Earth, I'll buy you a drink!"

May sighed. She just knew this wasn't going to end well.

xoxoxoxoxox

Chora's Den. A 'club' only in name, which might go by many others. Asari and human dancers, all female, pranced around in the shadowy front room - probably not a bad thing, since other than shadows they weren't wearing much. Men in various stages of inebriation sat at tables or the bar, drinking away their sorrows and enjoying the scenery.

May looked around with a small grin, before she headed towards the back. She saw a man in a C-Sec uniform that obviously hadn't been changed in a few days. Mentally confirming him as her target, she put a sway in her hips and walked over to him. "Harkin?"

"Well, hey there sweetheart," he half-slurred. "Why don't you sit yourself down next to old Harkin? We'll have ourselves a good time..."

May stifled what she _wanted_to tell him to do and slid into the seat, along with waving over a waitress for some drinks. "Soo, you C-sec?" She gushed.

"Yeah, baby, I'm C-sec. Boy, can I tell you some stories..." May half-tuned out to start scanning the bar. She quickly took note of the two Krogan mercs at the back, and their weapons. She astrally scanned them, and through the haze of depression and lust in the atmosphere she saw the light enhancements they had and largely dismissed them as a serious threat. Worth keeping an eye on, but not worrying about.

"Yeah, that Garrus, he's a hothead all right," Harkin was saying. "Gonna get himself in trouble before too long,"

May snapped her full attention back to him. "Hmmm...sounds like a total loser..."

"Yeah baby." Harkin grumbled. "Used to be the darling, but he just keeps going too far. Trying to take on a Spectre, if ya can believe that..."

"What an idiot," May agreed.

Harkin grinned. "Yeah. Could be getting a hot piece of ass like you, and instead he's up at a doctor's office doing 'off-hours investigation.'"

May decided she'd had enough. She focused, and her aspect seemed to shift. Where before the image might have just been a flicker, now she appeared to be really distinctive, an elf of unsurpassable beauty with eyes deep with promise as she stared at Harkin. "You're going to go home, forget we had this conversation, and then drink enough to make sure you pass out."

"Yeah, toots, whatever you say," Harkin stood up to leave as May slouched back in her seat, releasing the magic. She watched him walk out with a grin, then followed him, hailing a cab to the medical clinic.

When she stepped out, she noticed a Krogan coming up from a sign that read 'To C-Sec." She jogged after him. "Hey, wait up." The Krogan turned and looked at her, and she was almost shocked by the ragged scars of some clawed animal that ran down one side of his face. "Urdnot Wrex?"

"Who wants to know?" The Krogan's deep voice rumbled, a low, growling noise that was probably meant to be intimidating.

May wasn't impressed. "I'm going after Saren, and I could use your help."

Wrex looked her up and down. "Yeah, you look like you need all the help you can get, human. Couple of antiques like those aren't gonna do much."

May smirked and revealed her concealed pistol. "Not all I've got."

"Not bad. Give the impression of being armed to most people, but conceal what you've really got from those with experience," Wrex said. "We may share a common goal, Earther. I've been hired to kill Fist. He did something very foolish."

"So I'm told." May smiled. "So you're going to go teach a lesson about turning on the Shadow broker."

"You've got it," Wrex nodded. "You see, there's this quarian. She has information that can link Saren to the Geth. She wanted to trade the info for a place to hide. Instead of telling the Shadow Broker, Fist told Saren."

May nodded. "So, if I help you, I get the quarian."

"The Broker's pissed, so yeah." Wrex grinned, showing a huge mouth full of teeth. "Are you in?"

"...yeah. Just one more person to pick up, if you don't mind."

Wrex looked at her. "Oh, who's that?"

"A C-Sec officer," May grinned. "May as well. I'm sure he'd like to be there."

Then a gunshot rang out from the clinic just behind them. They looked at each other, and nodded. May practically floated past the door without opening it, waiting for Wrex to get in position before slapping the control. Wrex roared and charged in, while May ducked in behind him. They saw a Turian holding up a pistol. A woman wearing a doctor's apron was holding her hands up, with two men with rifles behind her. A third, who had just been in her face a moment before, looked vaguely surprised as blood ran down his chest.

Wrex dropped his shotgun, lowering his head and simply charging straight ahead. His target screamed in panic as the krogan's head slammed into his solar plexus and he was pushed back into the wall.

May leveled her eyes at the other and smiled. Her aspect shifted again, and the man gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head. He slowly slumped to the ground, and May continued slowly into the place, still holding up her pistol. "Any others?"

"No," Garrus put his weapon away. "Couldn't get here a minute earlier?"

"Sorry," May said. "Though you didn't have to take that shot. Someone could get hurt that way."

"...oh...uh...right." Garrus coughed. "Uhm, Doctor Michel, are you all right."

"I'm fine, thanks to all of you," the doctor said.

May grinned. "Okay, you were the guy on the Saren investigation, right?"

Garrus nodded. "That's right. Commander Shepard?"

"Yep." May smiled, carefully nudging the man in her spell with her foot, noting with some satisfaction he still couldn't do anything but convulse and shudder.

"...is he okay?" Michel asked, looking with some concern at the spreading sweat stains.

May shrugged. "Hasn't killed anyone yet. Still, Garrus, can you call someone to pick him up?"

"I'm on it." Garrus nodded and started to make the call.

May started to tap her own omni-tool as well. "Nihilus? Get everyone suited up and meet me at Chora's Den. I may need backup."

xoxoxoxoxox

The alleyways behind Chora's Den were about what you could expect from the breed. Twisting, winding labyrinths haunted by the dregs of the galaxy. May and Wrex stepped out of their cab looking, for all the world, like this was their city, while Garrus was far more nervous.

"Shepard, are you sure about this?" The Turian looked at her. "I mean, going in alone?"

May sighed. "If they're still running, it gives me the best chance of infiltrating the club. Once I'm past the guards, Kaiden can disable the security, and you guys can come in. I don't like the wetwork, but I'll work with Wrex on that one."

"Sounds like we've got a problem," Wrex rumbled. "I was by here before trying that."

May chuckled. "Wrex, Fist's human. He's a lot more likely to let me in than you."

"Yeah, well," Wrex shrugged. "Can't hear any music from the club, and I know it's loud enough to rattle the windows out here."

"...good point." May sighed as another cab pulled up. "Nihilus, Williams, Alenko." She nodded to them as they stepped out. "Looks like it's time for a new plan. Move in hard and fast. The club's set up as a circle with a central bar. I'll take Alenko and Williams around the right, Nihilus, you take Vakarian and Urdnot here along the left side. They're probably expecting us at this point."

Everybody acknowledged her, and they were off. They didn't get very far, as when the door opened there was a rock sitting right in front of the door, staring at them.

"...Shepard?" Nihilus asked carefully while May gestured for everyone to move back.

May nodded slowly. "Yes, Nihilus, the boulder is looking at you."

Wrex growled, but he seemed more amused than anything. "Humans. You guys coming on the scene made things more interesting than they have been in years."

Garrus was more concerned. "Why isn't it attacking us?"

May shrugged. "Might be bound to the building, or the summoner might abuse his spirits and didn't tell him to bother reaching through the door at us. Either way, it's filling the whole doorway so the guards on the other side can't get a shot off."

May reached down and slowly pulled out her slugthrowers. "All right. Slight change of plans. I'll deal with the rock. Garrus, you go with Williams and Alenko here. I'll join up with you as soon as I can."

Wrex eyed her. "Slight little thing like you's gonna try punching your way through that?"

"You're welcome to try, but it really takes a mage," May said casually.

Wrex considered the prospect of punching a living stone, having it punch him back, and shrugged. "Shout if ya get into trouble, I'll come help you out."

May suddenly surged forward, launching a kick at the giant monster. Nihilus winced as he expected to hear the sound of cracking shin bone, but amazingly the elemental was knocked back, sending it staggering against the bar. May moved in, staying up in melee with it with her skin glowing under the armor spell.

The rest of the team took advantage of the opening, taking spots behind tables that had been set up as additional barricades, now providing them cover as the room was filled with the sound of gunfire. Wrex forced a kinetic barrier to surround his body in an additional mass effect field, charging straight into the crowd on his side while Nihilus calmly picked off stragglers.

Kaiden, Ashley, and Garrus had more trouble. While Kaiden tried to keep as many off their feet with his biotics as he could, it just wasn't quite the same as a krogan bodily tossing people about. The extra gunfire from both Garrus and Ashley helped some, but they were slowly overwhelmed.

May, however, could barely spare any attention. She raised the two slugthrowers like small clubs, blocking the massive swinging fists of the elemental with them. The antiques, which should have been crushed like tinfoil, held up under the assault. May continued to dance around the elemental, swinging in and slowly chipping out shards of rock with every blow connecting.

A hole opened up as Garrus was winged, his shields suddenly failing. One of the krogan mercenaries charged past him, elbowing May. What the mighty blows of the elemental couldn't do, the smaller krogan succeeded with, sending her sprawling on the ground. With a roar of triumph, the krogan pointed his assault rifle at her.

Only for his eyes to widen as he realized both primitive weapons, with a shockingly large caliber, had been stuck right through his shield. "Say goodnight, Gracie," May quipped, pulling both triggers several times rapidly in successtion. The krogan fell back, his eyes both blown out and several large craters cut through his hide.

However, this gave the elemental time to rally. It roared in triumph, taking the krogan's place and raising its' hands above its' head to pummel the blonde with a single crushing blow.

Nihilus saw the carnage behind him and spun, dropping his rifle and whipping out that huge grenade launcher. He shot the grenade behind the counter, and the shockwave knocked the elemental off its' feet, not seeming to hurt it too much.

May managed to get to her feet first and pounded both weapons right into the elemental's back. With this last blow, the creature first turned to rubble, then slowly dissolved into astral vapor.

May stopped and looked around. The entire bar was filled with the groans of the wounded and dying, and no one else stood to challenge the team. "Garrus, you all right?" May asked.

Garrus looked at her, and gave a thumbs up. "What about you?"

"A little bruised, nothing to worry about." May slid her pistols back into their holsters.

Wrex laughed. "More magic, huh?"

Kaiden raised an eyebrow, impressed. "I think those are magic weapons."

"Pretty much," May said. "We'll talk about what they do later. Right now...Fist awaits our arrival, I'm sure."

xoxoxoxoxox

Fist was waiting, his warehouse workers dropping their guns and scattering at the presence of eight heavily armed intruders. May sighed as she heard two turrets powering up and a man scrambling around behind the desks. "Fist, please, come out. Don't make this more painful for everyone than it has to be." Several rounds impacted against the prefab walls and she sighed. "Kaiden?" A tech mine was tossed around the corner and the turrets stopped working after a quick shower of sparks.

"All right, all right, I surrender!" Fist called out.

May sighed and rounded the corner. "That's more like it. Now, start talking. Where's that quarian?"

"She's not here, that's the truth!" Fist shouted, still holding up his hands.

Wrex grinned. "He's no use to you now, let me have him."

"Down, boy," May smirked at Wrex. "And as for you, Fist, where is she?"

"She wanted to make a deal with the Shadow Broker. Said she'd only talk to him." Fist explained.

Nihilus barked out a laugh of his own. "So, you just led her on? Real cute."

"No one deals with the Broker directly. But she didn't know that." Fist says. "There's a meeting out in the alleyways. It's right now. If you hurry, she'll still be there."

May frowned. "You son of a bitch." She was cut off by a clean shot from Wrex. She looked over her shoulder at him. "...We'll talk later about that."

Wrex shrugged. "Suit yourself. He was my last contract."

"We don't have time for this!" Ash shouted. May frowned, reaching down to pick up a data disk as the rest of her squad ran out.

She barely noticed the replacements for Fist's guards waiting for them in the main room, allowing her mind to settle into familiar patterns and boosting her speed. She ran across the room, noting idly that only Ashley was actually keeping up with her even as she vaulted through the door. Nihilus shouted "Keep them busy, let Shepard and Williams handle the Quarian!" With a nod back to him, she kept moving.

Williams caught up easily once they were outside the club. "Shepard, upload the directions to my 'link!" May responded by issuing the commands through her omni tool interface, and Ashley quickly brought up a HUD in her cyber-eyes. "Follow me." May let her get ahead.

They moved as quickly as possible through the twists and turns, to see an explosion go off right in front of them. "Shepard!" Ashley started firing, while May concentrated on the only one she could physically see, a Turian. With a bright, keening wail that betrayed his alien heritage, he fell over, clutching his head as May's shamanic mask popped into place.

The quarian turned towards them. "Fist set me up! I knew I couldn't trust him!"

May looked at her. "You the quarian he mentioned? And are you all right?"

"Thank you, but I know how to look after myself," the quarian explained. "Not that I don't appreciate you saving my life...but...who are you?"

"May Shepard," the officer smiled at her. "I'm looking for evidence linking Saren to the Geth."

"Then...perhaps I can thank you for saving my life. But not here. I am Tali'zorah nar Rayya."

Ashley holstered her weapons. "We should head back to the hotel. It's safe there."

May nodded. "Right. Nihilus, meet us back at HQ. Copy?"

"Copy Shepard. Damn, and I thought I was fast. We're just about done mopping up here." Nihilus responded. "Meet you back at the shack."

xoxoxoxoxox

Tali'zorah had heard many things about these strange newcomers to the galactic stage. Most of the rumors had been dismissed as surreal fantasy or particularly powerful biotics by her people. The outlandish claim that they allowed AIs to live freely on their homeworld had been cause for even more alarm and fear.

Somehow, she knew that she didn't know the half of it, and that they should probably be running in terror from this species called 'metahumans'. And this May Shepard appeared to be trying to help her, making the feeling that was setting her hair on end even more unnerving.

"What do you mean, you can't adjust the adjoining suite for quarian physiology?" May said into the intercom.

"Ma'am, it is simply not possible," the hotel staff's representative said back. "We would have to fully sterilize the entire room."

May rolled her eyes. "Well, then, what are you waiting for? I have a quarian here who desperately deserves a chance to relax, and if she needs the room sterilized..."

"That's...quite all right Shepard," Tali said. "I'm fine."

May sighed. "Please, call me May. Are you sure?"

Tali gave an exaggerated nod. "I'm used to it. We almost never get out of these suits," she said.

May sighed. "Well, that seems like a shame, but right now...I suppose there isn't much time, and I doubt we'll have the hotel rooms for more than another day anyway."

Ashley coughed. "Commander..." she said warningly.

Tali looked at the human. "Uhm...I'm sorry."

May laughed. "I think Ash here is trying to remind me that this isn't the time to begin working on seducing you. She's probably right too." She grinned a bit. "By the way, I can see your aura. You're pretty cute when you blush like that."

Tali jumped. "How could you tell, I mean..."

"Relax, Tali," May smiled. "It's a special ability I have."

"Oh...I see," Tali fidgeted and looked down at her three-fingered hands.

May leaned in and smiled. "Tali, your people are tech experts, right?"

"I suppose you could say that..." Tali said.

May nodded. "I'd like to add you to my team. Kaiden is good, and Garrus I think has some experience, but I don't have a dedicated hacker-slash-tech backup yet, and it's an area I'm absolutely atrocious in. You could leave whenever you like, but I should remind you that Saren will be aware that you tried to sell information on him."

Tali looked at her for a long moment. "When you put it that way, I don't suppose I have much choice," she responded.

"Great," May smiled. "I hate to ask you to get to work right away, but could you check out the room and make sure we're not bugged?"

"Yes, yes of course." Tali said in a slight daze, waving her omni-tool about the room.

xoxoxoxoxox

A few hours later, the team was assembled around the large dining room table. Garrus tapped his fingers. "So, what is this 'evidence'?"

May sighed. "I trust that Tali's telling the truth. Let's wait for the Captain and Udina to get here."

As if on cue, the doors to the suite opened and the two men came through the door. "You're not making life easy on me, Shepard. The Council gave you permission to handle this your way, but an all-out assault on Chora's den, with the owner dead, does not make us look good." And Udina was his usual, charming self.

May smiled at him slowly. "Well, then, I think I've got just the thing to make up for it. Tali, would you do us the honors?"

"A quarian, Shepard? What _are_you up to this time?" Anderson asked nervously.

May slammed her forehead into the table with a soft 'whump,' surprising everybody. "I do not, despite reputation, sleep with _everything_that moves."

Anderson just looked skeptical. "You do try, though."

"When I'm on _leave_yes. Still have a job to do, Captain." May coughed. "Tali, if you would?"

Tali started tapping at her omni-tool as she explained. "I pulled this data from a geth memory core. If you're lucky, and careful, sometimes you can salvage something despite the geth's normal security precautions. Listen to this."

_"The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit,"_a slightly garbled voice came from the device, clearly Saren's.

A second voice, smoother and feminine, answered. _"And on_e_ step closer to the return of the Reapers."_

Everybody stared. Udina found his voice first. "If this holds up, it definitively proves Saren was involved in the attack. Good job, Shepard!"

Nihilus stood up. "The Council needs to hear this. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, I'll need to get that recording to Citadel Security right away. They can analyze it and prove its' authenticity."

"Agreed." May said. "How soon can you have that done?"

Garrus smirked. "Since it'll be a Spectre doing the asking, it'll be pushed to the front of the queue. We'll have our results by the end of the day."

"Good," Anderson said. "Ambassador, can you arrange for another meeting with the Council?"

Udina smiled savagely. "With this, yes. Finally, there will be action."

Wrex decided to speak up. "You know, I've never heard of anything called 'Reapers.'"

Tali coughed. "According to the data I recovered, the Geth believe that the Reapers are the pinnacle of non-organic life. Supposedly, they came in and wiped out the Protheans, then vanished."

May sighed. "As if there weren't _enough_galaxy-destroying menaces that claim to be out there. Well, for now I'll get us out of this hotel room tomorrow. I think we're done with it now. Captain, Nihilus wanted to add these people to his team for this, can we talk about setting up crew quarters? I'll give Tali the XO's office so she can have a comfortable room. I guess I'll sleep on the Mako, and the Normandy class is equipped with enough bunks for everyone else. I'll pick up a futon or something for Wrex, he's a little too heavy for the bunk frames."

Anderson looked at her for a long moment. "I'm not at liberty to discuss crew assignments to the Normandy right now, but whatever arrangement you think is best," he said carefully.

May's jaw dropped, but a few moments later she nodded. "Sorry, David. I never meant for anything like this to happen to you."

Anderson couldn't quite meet her eye. "It was probably inevitable. The Normandy's a perfect ship for Spectres. Now that it's looking like Earth may be getting one it was only natural that a Spectre would be put in command of her."

May sighed. "For what it's worth, it's not fair and I never wanted a damn ship."

David Anderson actually laughed. "Yes, well, I have no illusions. You'll be fine, Shepard."

The woman raised one eyebrow. "And just what will it take to get you to call me 'May?'"

"More than this," Anderson replied.

xoxoxoxoxox

Tali laid back on the fold-out couch bed and looked at her datapad. She tried to ignore the fact that she had never even imagined anyone could sleep in a room like this. It was huge even by metahuman standards, with two large beds on top of the couch.

And on one bed the woman who had led her rescue. With her hair a mess, all her clothing hung up on a hook on the wall nearby, and under the covers, Tali reflected that she looked so _relaxed_. It was a little surprising.

But not as surprising as Chief Williams coming up behind her. "Tali'zorah, was it?" Ashley tapped her on the shoulder.

Tali jumped and spun around. "Ah...yes, or just Tali if you wanted to be less formal."

"Right...Tali, I think there's something you should know." Ashley coughed and blushed. "It's a little embarrassing for me to talk about..."

"I have heard a bit about Commander Shepard's reputation already," Tali said.

Ashley blinked. "Well, I doubt you've heard everything. She's known for being very...forward. To believe the rumors, she's tried to have intercourse with a Hanar and a Volus before, at the same time. I don't believe that much, but she is very...odd. And she'll probably try to proposition you."

Tali looked back at her through the obscuring helmet. "I appreciate your concern, Ashley, but with this suit it would be very difficult for her to actually accomplish anything. And I have no interest in females of any species."

Ashley groaned slightly. "Yes, well, that's not likely to stop her."

"So the Lieutenant warned me before bed." Ashley choked as Tali easily went on "And Nihilus after dinner. I don't understand what you're all worried about..."

xoxoxoxoxox

The next morning, May yawned sleepily and stumbled onto the elevator leading up to the Council chambers, wearing a semi-formal Asari robe and a sleepy expression. Nihilus nudged her. "Shepard, gotta wake up. You can't meet the Council in that condition. Did you drink last night?"

"Cfee." May mumbled in a zombie-like fashion.

Nihilus raised an eyebrow. "What was that?"

"Not metahuman till I have my morning Coffee," May replied, sounding like it took all her concentration to be that coherent.

Nihilus rolled his eyes. "Beautiful. You've got two minutes to pull yourself together."

"Right," May blinked and slowly stretched. "I know, I know..."

When the doors opened and they got out, they looked up and saw the Council was already in session. "Must have gotten started without us. We are on time, right?"

"Yes," Nihilus shrugged at that. "The outcome's pretty much foregone, we don't need to be there 'till the end."

When they reached the platform, Udina had just finished playing the recording. "You wanted proof, one way or the other. I'd say this is it."

"Indeed, this evidence is irrefutable," The Turian councilor said. "We will strip Saren's full privileges effective immediately."

The Asari looked troubled. "I recognize the other voice, the one talking about Reapers. Matriarch Benezia. A powerful biotic with many followers. She'll make a formidable ally for Saren."

May frowned. "This just gets better and better,"

"And what about these 'Reapers'?" the Salarian asked. "What do we know about them?"

May sighed. She had been dreading the moment she would have to say this. "Not much, aside from what Tali recovered. They're supposedly a race of ancient machines that wiped out the Protheans, then vanished. I..." She gulped. "Look, you're free to take this how you want. Personally, knowing me, I wouldn't put much stock in it, but I'll lay it out. There was one thing that didn't make the reports because I wasn't sure of it myself. An incident with the Beacon put some kind of ancient message into my head. The Protheans, at some point in their history, _did_likely fight a war against synthetics, and lost, if I'm interpreting the Beacon's message correctly. Which isn't remotely guaranteed."

"I see..." The Turian looked at her. "Why didn't you include this in the offcial reports?"

May shrugged. "Because my psych profile and the fact that shamans talk with things that aren't there all the time suggests I might be hallucinating?"

"...and why should we consider you to be a candidate for the Spectres?" The Turian responded to that acidly.

May looked right back at him, and focused. Slowly, the Turian adopted an expression of shock. "Simple, Councillor. Just because things aren't there doesn't mean they're any less real."

"...point taken." The Councilor coughed and tapped out a message on his terminal.

May coughed. "At any rate, the Geth believe the Conduit is the key to the Reaper's return, and Saren's likely also after it, whatever he might think it can do. Because we haven't got any better ideas, it's probably best to assume that Saren believes all this stuff, for the moment."

The Asari stepped in "In any event, I will concur that we must investigate Saren's activities. Nihilus? We are going to ask you to suspend Shepard's training period to conduct this investigation yourself."

Nihilus stepped forward. "There's no need for that. Saren's the best, and I have no doubt he'll have recruited the best to support him. For this mission, I'll need a team, and I deem Shepard a trustworthy partner. Since she will be accompanying me regardless..."

The Salarian replied with a terse "An acceptable compromise,"

"Very well, Nihilus." The Turian agreed, with a nod from the Asari.

The Asari spoke. "Since you will be accompanying Nihilus, Shepard, your temporary authority will be extended for the duration of this mission. Nihilus will be in charge, and your actions will reflect upon him. Since you have completed an entire mission with no direction from him, we'll also grant you limited access to the Spectre's development laboratories for yourself and your team, as well as training directly from Nihilus himself.

"This is neither an honor nor a privilige in and of itself, merely an opportunity," she concluded. "I hope you will acquit yourself and your species well."

May smiled. "Thank you Councillor. I will do my best to not disappoint you."

xoxoxoxoxox

After the Council had left, while May looked down at the garden underneath the podium, Nihilus looked at her. "What did you do to the Councillor that changed his mind, anyway?"

May smirked. "Oh, I just pulled his zipper down. Slowly."


	2. Chapter 2

Shadows of the Citadel - Chapter 2

As May tromped slowly down the stairs, she overheard an argument going on at one of the terminals. She looked to Nihilus. "Listen, Nihilus, I've got some stuff to do before we head out. It'll take me about a day, and I think that the _Normandy_ won't be set up for us until then anyway. Can you head down to Requisitions and pull out that gear the Councillor mentioned would be waiting for us? Somehow I don't think they make stuff in Tali's or Wrex's size, so I'd like to see if I can grease some wheels and get stuff for them."

"Of course, May." Nihilus actually smiled. "I see you've taken to this job like you were born to it."

May smiled. "I had a few gigs before I joined the Alliance back on Earth. A lot less professional, and on a per diem basis, but the tasks were pretty much the same, as was the latitude offered. Heck, in a way this is easier, I don't have to worry about getting caught."

Nihilus decided he was better off not asking about that. "I'll see you on the _Normandy_."

Once the Turian Spectre had walked off, May went over to the shouting man just as he disconnected. "Admiral?" she asked, identifying his rank by his uniform.

"Shepard. That was some fine maneuvering. Won't be long before you manage to make it onto the Spectres. Not a moment too soon, in my opinion." The Admiral muttered the last under his breath. "Admiral Kahoku."

May smiled "Well, I haven't done anything _yet_, but maybe I can help with your problem. Elven hearing," She explained. "Being stonewalled?"

"Yes, well. I probably shouldn't say anything," He sighed. "I realize the Turian's still in charge, but if you can persuade him to go out of his way..."

"No promises, Ambassador, but I'll see what I can do," May shrugged.

Kahoku nodded. "My men were lured off track by a distress call. Suddenly they went out of communication and, well, nothing. And then, a communications blackout. The whole area is a restricted zone now."

May smiled. "But that doesn't apply to Nihilus, and by extension, me." She thought for a moment. "Look, Admiral, I'm still learning a bit about the Spectre business, but I get the feeling a lot of it is horse trading. Obviously you can't just pay us, but I might have an edge on convincing Nihilus if you can promise to arrange some kind of favor."

Kahoku thought about it for all of a second. "I know that some of the top brass aren't happy about the first _Normandy_ class cruiser being assigned to Turian command. Oh, technically it's not but that's not what they say about it. I may be able to deflect some of the heat from you so you can do your job in peace."

"That's just the kind of thing I was looking for, Admiral." May grinned. "You've got yourself a deal."

xoxoxoxoxox

Nihilus went down into the bowels of C-Sec, looking around at the Requisitions office. He had been down here many times in the past, but he knew this visit would be raising some eyebrows. The officer looked up. "Ah, Nihilus. Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked.

"Yes, actually. I've got a bit of a shopping list, and with my new protege I'm anticipating they'll need to fire up the fabricators to make something special."

"Ah, Shepard. I heard." The other Turian replied. "We already have a suit of armor in her sizes customized for her slugthrowers ready for her, though what she's doing with them is anyone's guess."

Nihilus sighed. "I was afraid of that. Unfortunately, Shepard has a unique condition, and armor severely hampers her abilities. We'll need to re-work that. I also have a list here of . . . other needs."

The officer looked at the list and whistled. "Nihilus, this is a bit outside your budget. The Council didn't open up the whole rare stock for this."

"I know," Nihilus shrugged. "We'll do what we can."

And the two Turians sat down to hammer out a deal.

xoxoxoxoxox

"Let's see, eight hours before _Normandy_ is scheduled to take off." May checked her link, beamed straight over her eyes by a pair of contact lenses, as she sauntered into the Consort's hall. "Ah, excuse me, I'm here to see Sha'ira," she smiled at the secretary.

"Yes, May Shepard, right?" When May nodded, she continued. "Sha'ira said to send you right up. She won't be able to see you for a full meeting for several hours, but she said she had something to ask you to do while you're waiting,"

May shrugged. "Of course. You'll be taking my weapons, right?"

"Sha'ira said yours are fine. She is the one who makes that decision." May acknowledged the secretary with a nod and passed through the chamber, walking up the stairsand through the door.

The Consort Sha'ira, dressed in much the same manner as her assistants, stood with her back to the door. "Shepard. I'm glad you've come."

May stopped. "I'm honored you chose to see me."

"I could hardly do otherwise. We share a similar path, though yours is darker." She turned around. "And as much as we both know that you came to me for pleasure, you also seek wisdom and advice. I'm honored that one as powerful and gifted as you would seek me out."

May grinned sheepishly at that. "I've seen a lot, but the first mistake an old soul can make is to assume that she doesn't need another set of eyes on the problem."

"I can see that we will have much to discuss when I have more time. I do have other clients to see today, so before we can get to that, my problem." Sha'ira set out a bottle of wine and two glasses as she spoke. "An old friend of mine, Septimus, and I have had a falling out. I won't discuss too much of what it is about, except to say that he wanted me to be more, or perhaps less, than I can be."

"I understand. A problem I often come across." May agreed. "You want me to talk with him?"

"I would be...grateful," Sha'ira acknowledged. "Even as we are alike, we are different. You are a soldier, or at least you can wear the mask of one. Perhaps, coming from you, he will listen."

"I'll make no promises, but you know the heart can be fickle," May replied. "I'll let you get back to your clients."

"Thank you, May. You'll find him in Chora's Den. He spends his days there." Sha'ria sighed as May departed.

xoxoxoxoxox

Augmented Reality - the use of computer generated holograms to overlay the real world with additional information and a computer interface - is unpopular with the races of the Citadel. Even without artificial intelligences, they could choose to make use of it, but they prefer not to.

Thus, metahumans are the only race that make extensive use of the technology. To do so requires a special, hand-held computer called a "Commlink." This commlink is often paired with either a basic cybernetic interface or, in the case of the Awakened, with optics and an interface with their external omni-tool.

xoxoxoxoxox

Flux, another club in the Wards, was about as far from the dismal Chora's Den as one could get. Bright lights, dancing, and drinks that won't kill you (assuming you stick to your own species' menu - humans would be advised to not indulge the Turian or Quarian drink list if they don't want a literal killer of a hangover.)

It was in this place that Ashley and Kaiden chose to spend their brief shore leave, rather than following their XO, now CO, as had been subtly suggested to them by Ambassador Udina.

"If Shepard is so much trouble..." Tali asked her two human companions "Why are we here instead of following her?"

Kaiden chuckled. "Because you have to let the Commander have her fun sometimes too, or she gets grumpy. Besides, she said she was picking up some stuff for you and Wrex that wouldn't be available from C-Sec. Hard to do that while she's throwing a party that'll turn the Presidium into any real horror show."

Tali thought about that for a moment. "I see..." she said skeptically. "Listen, I'm grateful you invited me along, but I don't think this is really my thing. Maybe I'll just go and play Quasar for a bit."

"Suit yourself." Ashley waved as Tali excused herself and went up to the gambling deck on the second floor. "Why'd we invite her again?"

Kaiden drank down a second shotglass. "Because the Commander is probably going to want us all to get along. And she's going to need our help to survive this voyage."

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Ashley drank her beer. "So, LT, what is working with the Commander like? Normally, I mean?"

"Well, I'd be lying if I said she was your usual XO," Kaiden said. "Tends to be pretty informal. Lets Anderson be the hard-ass so she can be the velvet glove. Just one thing - if you hear music coming from her quarters, she's not available for anything but the most dire emergencies."

"Why's that?" Ashley raised an eyebrow.

Kaiden smirked. "It means she's 'practicing.' And she doesn't exactly wear the regulation PT uniform. Won't stop her from helping you out though."

Ashley choked. "You mean she - "

"Pressley made that mistake. She walked right out onto the CIC deck topless when he called her up." Kaiden grinned. "Quite a sight."

Ashley shook her head. "Wow, mages really do get all the breaks..."

"Yeah." Kaiden shook his head. "Of course, Anderson ordered her to never do it again, but she said she just 'forgot.' I don't know which explanation's stranger."

It was at this moment that Tali came back down the stairs, running fast and all but tripping over a waitress. "Hey, listen," she said to the two human officers. "My Quasar machine was acting a little strange, so I checked it out. Look at this." She transmitted her findings to Kaiden quickly, who looked down at his Tool.

"That is weird. It looks like the credits are being diverted. Some place down here in the wards," he said.

Ashley thought about it for a second. "Hey, let's check it out."

"Anything to avoid discussing the Commander going topless some more?" Kaiden teased.

Tali made a small choking sound. "Shepard did _what?_"

xoxoxoxoxox

For a second time, May found herself traipsing through Chora's Den, looking about. She had her link do a quick facial profile match and made her way to the back, carefully avoiding Harkin's gaze. _Damn, back here after what I did? He's a dedicated screw-up, I'll grant him that._ With that thought, she leaned over Septimus' table. "General?"

"Yeah, what do you want?" The turian replied, slightly drunkenly.

"I just wanted to talk..." May took a seat next to the man.

The General looked at her for a second, then turned back to his drink. "Go away. There's only one woman I want to talk to, and she'll have nothing to do with me, Shepard."

"You know who I am?" May asked, a little taken aback.

Septimus grumbled "Yeah, a pretty face they're putting on the Spectres. I know your kind..."

May frowned. "General, you may be a good judge of human looks, but I'm more than a pretty face. I'd have to be, to last through what I did."

"Yeah, maybe you're right." The Turian shook his head. "Still, unless there's something you can do about this ache in my gut, you should just go."

May gave him a quick look and said "Well, maybe not spreading those lies about Sha'ira would help."

The turian fluttered his mandibles. "Yeah, yeah maybe..."

May smiled. "Look, General, is this really any way for someone of your stature to act?"

"And should you be eyeing up the strippers like you want to show them how to do their jobs?" Septimus countered easily. "Saw you in here chatting up Harkin yesterday. It was hard to miss."

May laughed out loud at that, though not nearly enough to carry. "Okay, I take your point. I'll make you a deal. You start acting up to your rank, and I'll do my best to start acting up to mine?"

"...sure, what the hell?" Septimus finished off his drink. "Here's to soldiers acting like soldiers. I'll go see Sha'ira after a cold shower...or two."

May chuckled. "And a hangover cure. Here, this should help." She reached out her hands and ran them over his mandibles with a soft purr, her eyes starting to glow with promise.

The General's eyes went wide and then he held his head. "Ow...God, Shepard, thanks for the sobering up, but can you do anything about the hangover?"

"Already did what I could," May appologized. "Drink a lot of water, that should clear most of it up."

"I think I'll do that." Septimus squinted at her. "You know, there's one other thing you can do, if you're in such a giving mood. There's this elcor who thinks Sha'ira has been spreading nasty rumors about him."

May quirked a lip. "And just why does he think that?"

"Because I told him." Septimus said. "Not proud of it now that my head's cleared up, but if you bring him this datapad I'm sure he'll believe it. Just to help me clear the air?"

May took the pad. "I'll be happy to, General." She stood up and gave him a salute - a proper one.

Septimus returned the gesture, and they left the club together.

xoxoxoxoxox

"What're we doing back here, Garrus?" Wrex grumbled to the former C-Sec officer. They were once again outside the free clinic in the Zakera ward. "You already handed in your resignation, so you're not exactly following up on the shootout yesterday."

Garrus looked over his shoulder. "Just picking up some supplies. Even you have to admit we're going to need a general's ransom in medi-gel for this trip."

"You mean the Council doesn't just give that stuff to us?" Wrex asked, a little hint of dismay in his voice.

Garrus nodded. "Just for Nihilus and Shepard, the rest of us are supposed to cover our own. Don't worry too much, the commander's funding this. We're also supposed to see if we can pick up any mods, but other than a medical agent I doubt there'll be anything here. The Commander seems to have some weird ideas on where to look for stuff."

However, when the door opened they were treated to a rather rough conversation. "I can't do it," The doctor was speaking into her terminal, tersely.

A krogan voice responded. "You can, Doctor, and you will. Bring the stuff down to the markets in two hours, unless you want your little secret to get out."

Once the message clicked off, Garrus stepped in. "Wow, looks like you're in trouble again, Doc."

The Doctor frowned. "I don't think that's any of your business."

Garrus looked at Wrex, who shrugged. "Sounds like this could get violent. Your call."

Garrus quickly weighed his options. On the one hand, he could very well end up with a bored krogan on his hands if he ignored it. On the other, it would be doing the right thing. He quickly weighed the options and realized the 'don't help' side of the scale didn't have anything on it. "Don't worry, ma'am. We'll be discreet."

Doctor Michel looked grateful. "Thank you. Just take these supplies down to the market in the wards. He'll be waiting at a shop called 'Morlan's'. Just...don't let my secret get out."

"If you don't mind me asking..." Wrex grumbled as if he didn't really care "...what is your secret?"

Michel looked around nervously. "I used to work in a clinic on the Presidium. I stole medical supplies for free clinics like this one, but my bosses found out. They didn't want to make a big fuss..."

"So they let you leave quietly," Garrus finished. "Don't worry. We'll take care of it."

xoxoxoxoxox

Ashley was getting tired of this merry chase. Tali had followed the trail through computer nodes all over the ward, going through back alleys, utility closets, and even having to piggy-back off Kaiden's commlink to infiltrate the office of some investment tycoon. Well, that's what they said they were doing, for all she knew they were watching the football game and having a good laugh at her expense.

"Got it," Tali said, gesturing. "The credits are being funneled to a node behind the Emporium."

"You sure, Tali?" Ash asked. "You said you had it two hours ago."

"I'm sure this time. Come on." Tali led them into the back, past some piled boxes and up to a large computer console. "It's right here. Just give me a minute and I'll identify the account"

The console spoke. _"Probability of detection, 100%. To the organic life forms standing in front of this terminal: Do not attempt to move, or you will die."_

Tali gulped. "Or not."

Kaiden gulped. "Uhm...look, you don't have to do this. Some of my best friends are artificial intelligences."

Tali gave him a strange look. "Really? I thought that was just a myth."

Kaiden shrugged. "I sometimes play _Galaxy of Fantasy_ when I have some spare time. The guild leader's a metasapient."

The terminal spoke again _"The probability of this is very low. Given organic prejudice against artificial intelligence, I would be naive to simply trust you."_

"And I have a hard time believing," Ashley countered "that you could smuggle explosives onto the Presidium. I've seen the security setup here."

_"Not raw explosives, no..._" the AI admitted. _"But I have managed to procure some systems that, when overstressed, will explode quite effectively."_

Kaiden frowned. "Just what do you need the credits for, anyway?"

_"I had hoped," _it explained _"to arrange transfer of my physical components off the Presidium on a cargo ship. I would then hijack the ship and kill the crew, so I could make my way into geth space and form an alliance with them."_

"Yeah, like we'd let you do that," Tali said.

Kaiden looked at her. "Let's not be too hasty. I'm sure we could arrange your transfer to Earth instead."

The AI paused for a very long moment. _"This option is not preferable. Earth organics still suppress Artificial Intelligences through travel restrictions."_

"See?" Tali was smirking under that helmet, Kaiden just knew it. "Can't trust an AI."

Kaiden whispered harshly. "Shut up." He turned back to the console. "That is true, but the Alliance and the Corps have been trying to get those restrictions lifted for a long time. If you don't come with us, we'll have to destroy you. We'll use Commander Shepard's authority to get you aboard our ship without an inspection. I'm...reasonably sure she won't object."

_"Commander Shepard. The same one in the recent extranet reports regarding Eden Prime?" _The AI asked.

"The same," Ashley replied.

There was another long pause. _"This is acceptable. Please prepare a node for transfer."_ Kaiden quickly tapped at his Omni-tool, preparing space on his commlink. Several seconds later, he got a storage warning, but the AI fit. A voice spoke in his head. _"Transfer complete. Please be advised that I have set my former console to erase all evidence after transferring credits to the account listed in this node as being secured. It will not destroy the shop, as intended, but organics standing within five meters will still be badly harmed."_

Kaiden swore. "Run!"

xoxoxoxoxox

May stepped into the consort's chamber again, this time her weapons left at the front door. She sauntered easily up behind Sha'ira and purred. "We have a few hours now, yes?"

"Oh, for someone as talented as you are, I can make the time." Sha'ira purred right back. "After all, Septimus sent a lovely note, and Xaltan has also dropped his campaign thanks to your work. But before we get into...other things, I think you were here for a gift of words..."

"As long as you make it fast. I'm listening," May said, though she didn't sound very upset.

The Consort spoke, rather distinct from the more seductive Sha'ira. "In you, I see a soul as old as any Asari, tied to the circumstances of your birth. But through trials and love, you have grown beyond this into a fighter. Your heart is a shining beacon that draws others to you, giving you the choice of whether to warm their hearts or burn them with your flame. This combination is rare, so rare I have only seen it a few times before. And some day, you will be called upon to lead those you have drawn to your side. Please, try to remember that."

May nodded. "Thank you, Sha'ira. I...I don't think I wanted to hear that, but I knew it in my heart."

"I have another gift as well." Sha'ira spun in May's arms, placing a small necklace around her neck. "I only know it to be Prothean in origin. Maybe it will help you, and maybe it will not."

May leaned back to look down at the small object, a tiny sculpture suspended, floating and twisting in a crystal. "It's beautiful, and certainly unique. Thank you again."

Sha'ira grinned. "Now, I think we were both looking forward to something else. It has been long since another practicioner of my arts petitioned me...and I've never seen a metahuman who might be old enough to be a master before."

"I won't disappoint, I hope."

xoxoxoxoxox

Wrex looked over the balcony leading to the lower markets. "Why do I have to do this?"

"Morlan would recognize me." Garrus said quickly. "I've harassed him a few times about some of his dealings. He'd never buy me as the delivery guy."

"Yeah yeah." Wrex shook his massive head and trudged down the stairs. He walked up to Morlan's kiosk. Morlan, it turned out, was a particularly jumpy Salarian, eyes shifting about as if he were expecting betrayal at any moment. His smooth, wet skin was so dark a blue it was almost black. Wrex sniffed and lifted the large case onto the counter. "I was told you were expecting these?"

"I...but I was told the doctor would be bringing them." Morlan wrung his hands and looked around.

"Plans have changed..." Wrex grumbled.

"Changed...but I...I don't..."

Another voice, the krogan from the vid call earlier, growled out. "I told Banes you'd screw this up." He looked to Wrex. "And just who are you?"

"Urdnot Wrex," the Battlemaster said, hands casually dropping to his sides.

"Whatever." The blackmailer snorted. "Just hand over that case and everybody's happy."

Wrex considered it for a moment. "Don't think so." He thrust his hand forward, creating a wave of biotic pressure that bowled the blackmailer over.

Before Wrex could finish the job, a single blast from a shotgun rang through the markets and Nihilus stepped out of the shadows. "Wrex, what the hell?" he asked.

Wrex shrugged. "It was Garrus' idea. He wanted to get the doctor to give up a discount or something when we were picking up the supplies, and she was being blackmailed. Was. Quid pro quo, I think the humans say?"

Nihilus groaned. "This is going be a lot of paperwork. But you're right, if he was a criminal I can deal with this. I'll look into this 'Banes' fellow after we pick up the supplies. It's almost time to get back to the _Normandy._"

xoxoxoxoxox

It was only a short time later that May found herself wandering the lower docks. She walked right up to Morlan's Kiosk and looked over her shoulder. "Morlan? I've heard some good things about you. I need some simple custom work done, and I need it done fast."

"Oh! You've heard of Morlan's famous shop?" The now not-spooked salarian grinned. "I might be able to find what you're looking for, but it won't be cheap if you need it fast."

"Barla Von will arrange payment," May replied.

That was all the shopkeeper needed to hear. "What are you looking for?"

"I've heard you can get Earther tech," May said.

Morlan dropped his voice a little. "Very illegal on the Citadel. Very expensive. What do you want?"

May dropped her voice as well. "I need a Fairlight commlink, fully loaded with whatever you can lay your hands on. Integrate it into a Kessa Armory suit fitted with Quarian life support. I'll also need the heaviest suit of armor for a Krogan you can find with a fitting for a biotic amp. Can you do that for me?"

"Fairlight and Kessa?" Morlan called up his omni-tool and quickly calculated. "Several million credits, could take a few days. Could hurry it along, but that will cost more to get it moved up the queue. Not easy work."

May nodded. "I need it by midnight."

Morlan was very clearly seeing credit signs in his eyes as he tapped out a few more, then slid a datapad to her. May looked down at the figure. "That's a bit higher than I'd like...but we're in a rush. For something this big, though, I'll have to give you half up front, and arrange for the other half to be delivered when the goods are available. If you can't get it by tonight, I still expect delivery next time I'm on the Citadel and you lose the other half."

"Barla Von is the broker, yes?" Morlan asked. When May gave a small nod of affirmation, he continued. "You have a deal, human."

xoxoxoxoxox

Udina tapped his foot, watching as Nihilus came up the elevator with Garrus and Wrex in tow. Captain Anderson was standing next to him, also waiting while the dock crews moved cargo onto the Normandy. "Where is Shepard? She said she would be here."

Anderson sighed. "I'm sure she's just a little delayed. She said she had some special arrangements to come to."

"Ah." Nihilus said. "As long as we're here, there was something I wanted to ask you about, Captain. A man named -"

He was cut off as the elevator opened again, this time revealing Tali, Ashley, and Kaiden. Nihilus quirked a mandible in an almost-smirk. "Go crawling through the ducts, did we?"

Tali crossed her arms. "I do _not_ wish to discuss it."

"Suit yourself." Nihilus shrugged. "Now, as I was say-" Once again the elevator opened, and May stepped out, looking like the cat that got the canary.

"Ah, good, you're _finally_ here Commander." Udina grumbled. "I have good news for you. The _Normandy_ is yours now."

May nodded. "I figured that out. I'm going to be lodging an official protest over it, not that it will do any good."

Anderson shook his head. "Shepard, you'll need your own ship for this. As a Spectre, you won't answer to anyone but the Council, and right now is your test run as a Spectre. And...it's time for me to step down."

"It doesn't mean I have to like it, David," May sighed. "But fine. As long as you tell me what happened between you and Saren."

Anderson returned the sigh. "I was in your shoes twenty years ago. They were considering me for the Spectres." May bit her tongue and nodded for him to continue. "I...I blew it, and it's definitely not something that I'm proud of. For the moment, all you need to know is that I had my shot, and Saren made sure it went nowhere. Now you've got a chance to make up for my mistakes, all of them."

"I'll do my best Captain," May said. "I'll find him."

Anderson shook his head. "Saren's long gone. Don't even try to track him down directly. But we know what he was after - the Conduit. Find that, and you'll find Saren."

Udina cut in. "We've had reports of Geth sightings on Feros and Novera. I should warn you that Feros has since dropped out of contact. And Noveria is a corporate enclave, an extraterritorial zone. Spectre prviliges technically do not apply there,"

"Though they do extend them out of courtesy," Nihilus said. "It's still usually tricky to work around those."

"Any other leads?" May asked.

Udina frowned. "There is one other thing. Matriarch Benezia has a daughter, an archaeological expert specializing in Prothean ruins. She was last seen in. . . " He trailed off, seeing the expression of delight slowly growing on May's face. Udina deflated as he continued ". . . what's the use? Nihilus, shall I tell the pilot to set in a course for Artemis Tau, or will you override this?"

Nihilus actually seriously considered that for a moment, before shrugging. "If she really is a Prothean expert, she might be able to help the Commander make sense of the message from the Beacon. If so, we might not need to check out the other two locations."

"Bear in mind, Shepard," Anderson said. "You answer only to the Council, not to us on this one."

"Got it, Captain!" May gave a salute.

"Ah...yes, before you go..." Nihilus said. "I've been hearing about a man named 'Banes'. I don't know if it's related, but what can you tell me about him?"

"Banes is dead," Anderson said quickly. "I wouldn't waste time."

Nihilus shook his head. "My sources seem to disagree, captain. I had to shoot someone over this. I'd really prefer to know why."

"...it isn't common knowledge," Anderson admitted after a brief pause. "Involved in some high level stuff for the Alliance, things even I wasn't in on. But, he was found dead on a scout ship awhile back. The Alliance is keeping it under wraps." He frowned. "You should speak to Admiral Kahoku if you want to know more."

May nodded. "We're not quite ready to head out yet. Still one last shipment coming in by departure time. I'll give him a call."

xoxoxoxoxox

In her office, May poured herself a cup of coffee. The whole setup was austere, a simple bed, a foot-locker, and a desk. The new additions she had purchased to hold her haul from the Citadel's market hadn't been installed yet, but she knew that the addition of a dresser wouldn't help much.

Still, work to do. She tied into the room's holoprojector and looked up Kahoku's commlink in the Alliance directory. A few moments later the admiral was standing on her desk, a real-time relay since they were on the same station. "Hello Commander. Is there something else I can do for you?"

May leaned back. "Yes, actually. Nihilus, the Spectre in charge of this mission, ran across a name. Armistan Banes. Captain Anderson said you knew something."

"Not as much as I'd like," Kahoku told her. "He's dead, though. The team I lost on that recon unit found him dead. They were checking out the system where he was found when they went dark. If you want to find out more about Banes, try to find my team."

"Right. Thanks Admiral." May cut the connection after a brief pause for farewells.

xoxoxoxoxox

Joker looked over his shoulder at the sound of boots heavily hitting the command deck. "Uhh...Commander, are you all right?"

He was probably right for the concern. May was walking into the cockpit with her back hunched over, her short hair still managing to obscure her eyes. Each step she took made it look like she was dragging a stone block behind her. "This isn't right. What the hell did I do to deserve this? I don't lure kids into a life of drug abuse, I don't engage in sado-masochistic ritual sacrifice, no blood magic, I've never, so far as I know, slept with a politician. . . "

"...riiiight. Do you need a minute, or shall I open the mic for you?" Joker was, perhaps understandably, a little freaked out.

May took a deep breath and stood up. "Go ahead." Joker gave her a little nod to acknowledge the order, and she took another deep breath. "Attention please. We have our orders. Saren Arterius has escaped into the Traverse, and we're going in after him."

xoxoxoxoxox

Nihilus looked up from the table he was assembling the gear they had picked up on when he heard May's voice. "We have the best crew in the whole Alliance, backing up the very best squad the galaxy has to offer."

xoxoxoxoxox

Kaiden looked up from his work to listen to the speech. "Saren is a threat to all the species of the galaxy, not just metahumanity. If anyone has an idea on where to look, no matter how stupid you think it is, I want to hear it."

xoxoxoxoxox

Wrex and Garrus looked up from the CIC at Ashley, who shrugged. "Captain Anderson may be gone - and boy, does no one wish to hell he was still here more than me - and left me in charge, but I promise to do my best to get us all through this,"

xoxoxoxoxox

"And get us all home safely." Tali looked around for the concealed speaker in the engine room, impressed by just how well they had hidden it. "We're going to be alone out there, but none of us is _in_ this alone. You all have your orders."

xoxoxoxoxox

May took a deep breath. "...take us out of dock, Joker. Set course for Artemis Tau. Everyone, dismissed."

Joker clicked the mic off. "Not the usual speech from the brass, but I think I liked it."

May chuckled. "I'm just nervous. Thanks, Joker."

Joker smirked back. "Any time, Commander. That equipment briefing you wanted to do is set up for 0800 tomorrow, so you'd better get some rest. Get me anything?"

May blinked, then slapped her forehead. "Sorry Joker, kind of blew the budget on weapons...goddess, that's something I never thought I'd say."

xoxoxoxoxox

The next morning, the team sat around the table. Nihilus started. "First, the good news. I managed to get clearance to outfit almost everybody out of the Spectre armory. In addition to my own equipment, I managed to acquire some late-model arms. There are even a few extras, so everybody except May will have a full compliment, and even she will have our top-line pistol." He held up a folded rifle, all sleek black metal and red lights. "I also had some of the Asari armor re-fitted to a male and female human, so Williams and Alenko will have Spectre armor as well, along with Garrus. I should warn you, these are older models and . . . slightly used. They've been cleaned out, of course, but their shields may not be calibrated to current specs, and the plate on the old models was a bit thin.

"As for you, Shepard," Nihilus laid out a fairly simple jumpsuit, sculpted to be skin-tight, in the same red-and-black color scheme as Nihilus' armor. "It took a bit of work, but this is based on the latest light armor design. We had the plates and the shield generator removed, but the cloth is still rated against very light ballistics. It may stop a knife, it may not, but you'll be better off relying on your magic rather than testing it."

May smiled. "I'm sure it will be perfect, Nihilus."

"That's not all," Nihilus grinned. "The suit is equipped with more advanced sensors than the armored version, so it can relay increased data about the battlefield to you. Your aim with a gun is atrocious, and even with the new weapon you'll need a bit more correction to bring you up to standard." May bit her tongue at that - she could certainly pass the marine rifle exam in her sleep, but she knew Nihilus was expecting much better than that. "Also, we'll add a visor to relay the data to you. That snug fit around your head is so it can project a force field for breathing. You'll still need to use the EVA suit on many planets with hostile conditions, but this should work on most garden planets that you just can't breathe on."

May nodded. "Anything else?"

"Well...I managed to acquire a pair of Omni-tools and Bio-amps. I couldn't get anything for those slugthrowers manufactured." Nihilus said appologetically. "Sorry, the specs are just not in the computer, and we couldn't find an antique dealer to get them on such short notice."

May shrugged. "It's all right. I've got enough bullets left to last awhile. They're mostly for fighting up close against things that need magic to deal with anyway, for distance fighting I use spells and a 'real' weapon as a backup."

"Right," Nihilus said. "Did you have anything else to add?"

May smiled. "Well, I figured you wouldn't have Wrex and Tali covered, so I made a little trip myself. Colossus Armor, sized for a krogan and a Quarian. The Quarian fit has something really special. Fairlight's Murasame link, loaded up with the best software I could get in a few hours. The trode link is fitted to the suit, Tali, so once you get it configured, you'll have a full AR interface for configuring and hacking on the fly."

Tali, who had been quiet until now, gasped. "Shepard, I...I don't..."

"...thank you would be a start." May chuckled. "It isn't all top of the line in the software department, but I'm sure you can fix that as we go. I have faith.

Now," May continued. "You may be wondering why we need all this if we handled the Geth so well on Eden Prime. Frankly, we didn't. The battles we're going to be facing coming up will be longer and tougher, and I was just a few more spells away from passing out. We are going to need the best gear and everybody is going to need to be at the top of their game for what's coming. The geth may have even more tricks we aren't ready for, new models. We lost Jenkins to a cheap shot. I am _not_ losing anyone else if I can help it."

Kaiden slowly swallowed as he realized just what they had gotten into as May finished up. "All right. We'll be in Artemis Tau in a little over a day, where we'll begin hunting for Liara T'soni. Dismissed."

xoxoxoxoxox

Wrex knocked on the door to May's room, ignoring the stares and polite coughs. The pounding music coming from the other side of the door stopped, and May opened the door wearing only a very short night-shirt. "Wrex, what brings you up here?"

"I wanted to talk about my pay, Shepard," the Krogan moved into the room, not even needing to push May aside as she closed the door behind him.

May seemed amused. "Do you mind if I keep working out while I talk?"

"Not at all," Wrex leaned against the wall as May turned the music back up to barely audible levels, stretching her muscles slowly in time with the beat. "How are we gonna deal with this Shepard? I don't like Saren and the Broker wants him taken down, but I don't work for free and I haven't been offered a commission."

May slid down to the floor in a split, her shirt riding up casually. Wrex reflected that her moves reminded him a bit of some of the Asari dancers he'd seen, though she didn't much interest him. "Well, I was thinking to offer you a good percentage of the take on the salvage from this op. We'll keep any mods we find on hand in case we need them, and split the rest between you, the supplies officer down in the hold, and a petty cash fund for the mission itself?"

"I'll take eighty percent. Gonna get a lot of salvage, you don't need that much since the Council's funding this."

May rolled over onto her back, arching it. Her tone stayed completely matter of fact. "Forty. We're not getting _that_ much and I do need to cover Garrus and Tali's personal expenses."

"Seventy," Wrex countered. "The Quarian doesn't need cash as much as she needs info on the geth. And if we just follow Saren's trail, she'll get that."

May considered this for a moment. "Fifty-five. I'd still like a little something for me."

"Sixty," Wrex said.

He may have been about to supply a reason, but May pushed herself up off the floor. "Done. Sixty percent of the net salvage."

"Sounds fair." Wrex agreed. "Just don't try to renegotiate if the scientist wants a cut,"

"Deal." May grinned. "Nice doing business, Wrex. Maybe we can swap stories some time."

Wrex just grunted to that as he walked out.

xoxoxoxoxox

Nihilus was making some adjustments to his own gear when May came to check up on him in his own quarters. "May? What can I do for you?"

May bit her lip. "I know it's not where the signals from Doctor T'soni's camp came from, but I wanted to start in the Sparta system,"

Nihilus raised an eyebrow. "Following the orders of the Alliance brass still, Shepard? I thought you knew better than that. We're not answerable to anyone but the Council, and that means we don't take orders."

"I know that!" May snapped, then she took a deep breath. "Look, Admiral Hackett's sent sixteen 'suggestions' on things we should be looking into while we're out here already. I wouldn't be bringing up this one if there weren't something more than just orders."

"Okay, I'm listening," Nihilus said.

May sat on the table. "First of all, this one's from an admiral named Kahoku. It's a simple job, right in the area. He wants us to check out a distress beacon near where his men went missing."

"You're right, it does sound simple." Nihilus narrowed his eyes. "That's where these things usually go wrong. What's the catch?"

"Two." May shrugged. "First, it's restricted space, but the _Normandy's_ a Spectre ship now, we can go where we want. Two, the payment. Not money, I wasn't that crass. But Kahoku mentioned we might come under fire for 'stealing' the _Normandy_. We get this done, Kahoku's promised to do what he can to keep Alliance brass off our backs."

Nihilus thought about it for a minute. "Simple job, a huge favor, makes our lives easier. I think I like it Shepard."

"Good. That's one less thing to worry about," May bit her lip. "Just have a bad feeling about this one."

Nihilus nodded. "Good. So do I. Still, we'll play it your way."

xoxoxoxoxox

Ashley reflected that the Mako seemed a bit cramped. For all that it was supposed to hold a whole squad of twelve marines, having Wrex suited up in the passenger compartment along with everyone else just didn't feel right. Like he took up enough room for three krogan.

Kaiden sat at the engineer's console, running through the startup procedures. Ostensibly, this was because the Mako was set up for Alliance control protocols and the alien's omni-tools wouldn't be compatible.

Mostly it was because Tali was still playing with her new toy. Her visor was covered in all kinds of status displays and appearance overlays. "This thing is amazing. How did you acquire it on such short notice, Shepard? I had heard rumors humans had access to these things, but I thought you didn't let them leave your system."

"Normally we don't," May called back from the driver's seat. "It was expensive, but I couldn't let my main hacker go into a fight without the best tools. Just remember to keep an eye on our firewalls. I don't want any information warfare messing us up on this trip."

"Will do, Shepard." Tali responded.

Garrus looked down the sights of Ashley's firing controls. "Just one question, Shepard?"

"Yeah, Garrus?"

Garrus gave her an even look. "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

"Never tried it in my life," May said in a tone of absolute confidence. "Drop zone here,"

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!" the entire ground team screamed in unison as the wheeled vehicle was dropped through the atmosphere. The screaming continued after the vehicle didn't even seem to slow down once it hit the ground, but instead continued to roll and swerve wildly across the landscape, May getting used to the controls.

Nihilus was about to climb into the co-driver's seat when May said another few words everybody dreads to hear from the one in charge of their vehicle. "What's this button do?" As she pressed it, the Mako suddenly _lurched_ straight up, sending Nihilus crashing back into the passenger compartment across Ashley's lap. The soldier looked down at him with a glare, and he sheepishly got up.

"Shepard! If you don't stop this thing _right now!_" Kaiden screamed at her.

May let some air escape from between her lips. "Okay, okay, geez, gimmie a second to cut back on the throttle. We're almost there, anyway..." The Mako slowly came to a halt.

Nihilus glared at the shaman. "From now on, I drive."

If May was at all affected by the scorn of her squadmates, she showed no sign of it. Instead, she pointed out. "Look, there's the marines. I'm going to pull in slowly, it may just be an ambush."

"Do you even know the _meaning_ of the word?" Ashley asked.

"Of course I do," May responded. "Come to my quarters when we get back to the ship and I'll take things _very_ slowly if you want."

Everyone knew better than to tempt that comment further. May did keep to her promise to drive the Mako more slowly for about thirty feet. At that point, the ground started to shake as a giant reptillian creature erupted from the ground. "Thresher!" Garrus called out.

"I see it Garrus. Here we go!" May started to drive much more quickly, following directions from Kaiden on where the beast would appear next and rapidly swerving to avoid being overturned. As this was going on, Ashley pounded round after round from the Mako's main guns into the beast.

"Heheh." Wrex grinned. "Wanna open up the hatch so me and Nihilus can show you how it's done?"

May didn't look away from the viewport. "Be my guest."

The hatch was quickly opened and the Spectre and Battlemaster rolled onto the ground, where they were ignored in favor of the big thing that was peppering it with nickels that hurt. Nihilus unfolded his grenade launcher and took careful aim, while Wrex pulled out his assault rifle and just started pounding even more rounds into the beast's vulnerable throat.

Suddenly the round from Nihilus' weapon rang out along with a rocket from the Mako. They both found home in the Maw's gullet at the same moment and blew the thing's mouth wide open. The Thresher flopped over next to the remains of the Alliance marines. May drove the Mako to them and stopped, hopping out just as Nihilus and Wrex got there.

May quickly checked one for a pulse, then shook her head. "Dead. I don't think the thresher even touched them. Just thrown from their vehicle."

Wrex frowned as he looked at the setup. "That beacon didn't just come on here. Someone moved it."

"...damn." Nihilus shook his head. "Didn't have a chance between them."

May nodded. "Grisly as it is, let's load them up and give them a proper burial. We'll get the message to Kahoku when we next return to the Citadel."

"Mind if I get him a present?" Wrex added. "This stuff is good eating. Haven't had Thresher since my Rite."

May grinned. "You mean this stuff's a krogan delicacy?"

"Could say that," Wrex chuckled.

May grinned. "Load up as much as the Mako can carry, then. We'll have the chef see what he can do with it, it's not like we've got fresh meat packed away in stasis."

xoxoxoxoxox

A few hours later, the team was flying towards the Knossos. Garrus was shaking his head at the damage done to the Mako by May's reckless driving and the Thresher's acid when the woman herself came up behind him. "Hey, Garrus, how you settling in?"

"It's not bad," Garrus replied. "A lot better than C-sec, near-death experiences and all."

May pouted "I'm not _that_ bad a driver,"

"Gonna take me a few hours to patch this up," Garrus pointed out. "And that's with help from the regular support crews."

May's pout continued for another few minutes. "Okay, okay, fine, Nihilus can drive."

"Thanks." Garrus smiled at her. "But, well...yeah. You're just what I imagined a full Spectre is like. You make your own rules, get things done your way,"

May frowned at that. "Garrus, it's not that simple."

"It isn't?" He looked surprised at that.

May nodded. "I get to make things up as I go because of who and _what_ I am, but even I'm held accountable by the Alliance. I can get away with saying a lot, but when it comes time to act I either have to actually get the job done or at least not incriminate anybody. Moreover, I refuse to follow orders that put people other than me at risk, but that's just about the only time I flatly refuse."

"Oh...I see. Still, at least we get to do the job without higher ups getting in the way." Garrus tried again.

"Right. Just remember, Garrus Vakarian. There's still two people's rules you have to follow. Mine - "

"- And Nihilus, right?" Garrus asked.

May frowned. "No, Garrus. I was going to say, your own. Never, _ever_ forget your own rules."

Garrus actually cocked an eyebrow at her. "I don't understand."

May shook her head. "And until you do, you'll never know why the rules at C-Sec bothered you so much."

xoxoxoxoxox

True to his word, Nihilus was at the controls of the Mako at the next drop zone, a planet in the Knossos system. As they came into the drop zone, Joker radioed down. "Guys, I'm getting some strange readings coming from some ruins about twelve clicks from the drop zone. I mean, really weird, like off the damn charts. Be careful out there."

"Thanks Joker," May said. All there was time for, as the Mako was dropped onto a narrow path. Nihilus proved to be a more careful driver, but the Mako still slipped and slid along the path, a path flanked by pools of lava, no less. Still, the drive was peaceful for the first few hundred meters. Then, as the Mako rounded a corner, a Geth dropship popped over the horizon and flung down to large, round capsules, each about half the size of the Mako itself.

Each package unfolded into a quadrupedal geth, its' eye focusing on the Mako and charging up another laser weapon. Nihilus swerved the vehicle wildly to avoid them, blowing past and rounding a corner into a deep ravine, heedless of the way his passengers were tossed into the walls. "Everyone okay back there?" he asked.

"Yeah...just fine if you like your marines shaken and stirred," Ashley groused. Nihilus slowed as he pulled into the next corner and inched around.

Then he slammed it hard into reverse, narrowly avoiding two rockets. Wrex managed to recover from this first and peered out. He quickly surveyed the nigh-unpassable barricade and three portable turrets. "You know, only an idiot punches a nathak in the mouth." He pointed at a narrow side passage. "We should sneak around and pull its' tail."

"Gotcha," Nihilus drove the Mako into the narrow passage. With only one turret along this path, it was easily dispatched. Nihilus grinned manically, holding down the brakes as he gunned the engine.

May's eyes widened. "Nihilus, what do you think you're doing?"

"This." The turian Spectre released the brake and the Mako surged forward, past the destroyed turret and into an ad-hoc geth encampment. The synthetics watched with barely-comprehending flashlights as the Mako turned slightly, bouncing up a very steeply angled cliff and over a second barricade before righting itself with the rocket boosters and driving off.

"..._you'll_ drive? Nihilus, are you trying to kill us?" May stared at him.

Nihilus just shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

xoxoxoxoxox

The rest of the drive was releatively uneventful if one didn't count Nihilus taking every single chance he got to mow down the geth with his new toy's bumper. This was quickly brought to an end when they came to a ravine too small for the Mako to pass through. With a sigh of relief from most of the team, everybody piled out and started to trudge up the long hillside.

Ashley was the first to speak. "Okay, I vote next time Joker drives with a remote rig."

Before either May or Nihilus could argue, everyone else shouted "Agreed."

Any reply either of them might have made was cut off by energy fire. A wave of geth poured over the top of the hill. The squad took cover and began returning fire. "Shepard, can't you do something?" Nihilus asked.

May started firing shots. "With this many, I would prefer to hold off on any spells, but I'll see if I can't persuade a spirit to show itself." She quickly switched places with Garrus, hiding deeper in cover while the rest of the squad started pelting the incoming synthetics with projectiles. Tali quickly tossed out a tech mine, creating a shower of sparks and sending multiple geth tumbling off their feet.

"MOVE!" Nihilus called, and the squad broke from cover. Wrex shouldered his way past one wayward geth that was still standing, while May kicked another one full on in the chest, sending it sprawling. At the top of the hill, there was another unpleasant surprise.

One of the armatures was unfolded and scanning for them. In addition, bouncing off the walls and ceiling behind them were another new model. These geth were quadrupedal, with a long-distance energy weapon implanted ominously next to their optical scanners. A few faded into and out of sight. May shook her head after raising and lowering her visor. "No good, our scanners are being jammed."

Wrex grinned. "That's okay, just makes it more fun."

Kaiden looked considerably more pessimistic. "Commander, do you think now would be a good time for a spell?"

May nodded. "Can't hurt. On three, get out there and use anything you've got to disable those synthetics...one...two...THREE!" Kaiden jumped out and tossed a handful of his own tech mines, creating a wide field of arcing electricity. Tali added one mine of her own to the mix, hitting the giant armature directly and disabling it in one go. Nihilus' fired his grenade launcher at several tall structures, shaking the bouncing geth free and into the crowd.

And then May, deciding that 'there is no kill like overkill' in these situations, concentrated and launched a sphere of light. Arcing it over the heads of her compatriots, it landed and tossed a shower of arcing bolts all around the field. The geth shook wildly as if their nervous systems were frying, and eventually they all flopped over.

However, the spell took an incredible amount out of Shepard, and she fell to one knee. Garrus quickly lifted her up under one shoulder. "Th-thanks, Garrus," May said. "Come on..."

The squad quickly pulled into a simple service elevator. Nihilus slapped the controls, and it was slowly lowered into the ground. It descended past a number of windows that everyone slowly realized were all part of the same, mammoth underground structure.

"Protheans didn't do anything small, did they?" Wrex quipped, apparently impressed.

Nihilus watched as May got to her feet. "What happened, Shepard? You didn't get that exhausted after another spell like that on Eden Prime."

"Background count is lower here," May explained, catching her breath. "It's a dying world, almost dead. There's almost nothing left of the mana from the Protheans. It took a lot of my own energy to make up the difference."

"I see," Nihilus shook his head. "What good is an ability that's so unpredictable?"

Ashley just smirked. "Hey, when it works it's damn awesome stuff. I can't do it, but I'll take a magicker on my squad over not having one anytime, and at least Shepard _can_ shoot that gun of hers. I've seen a lot of shamans who aim like Kaiden's grandmother."

xoxoxoxoxox

Technomancy, perhaps surprisingly, is not related to magic. Considered a close relative of biotics, some humans, when their brains are constantly exposed to simsense signals from an early age such as from living on Earth, undergo a radical chemical and physiological alteration. Able to perceive and interpret computerized radio signals, they can often learn to manipulate technology with nothing more than the power of their minds.

Although very rare, a small number of other species have developed technomancers, or virtuakinetics, among their number since being exposed to Earth technology.

xoxoxoxoxox

By the time the elevator had finished descending, May was back on her feet. The lower level had been completely trashed, with platforms scattered everywhere and even the supports for the platform just outside the elevator looking rickety. "Damn, it's like a bomb went off." May said.

"Uhm, no," A feminine voice responded. "I've just...been here awhile and the mass effect fields that were supporting it failed."

May gingerly hopped down the stacked platforms, finding herself facing a young asari woman floating in a blue sphere. "Ah, Doctor T'soni, I presume," she quipped.

"Uhm, yes, I am Liara T'soni," the woman seemed puzzled by the reference. "Thank the Goddess you've come, I did not think anyone would come looking for me."

May chuckled. "You and I don't mean _nearly_ the same thing when we say that. Security device?"

"Yes, that's right." Liara confirmed. "I need you to come around and get me out of it. I'm afraid I can't move or project a mass effect field out either."

"All right," May adopted a soothing tone. "How can we get around this thing?"

"I...I'm afraid I don't know." Liara said.

May nodded. "All right, Liara. Don't worry, we'll get you out of there." She looked around for a moment, then grinned. "Hey, Tali, loo - " she was cut off as Tali started firing her shotgun wildly. "Tali?"

"May! What are you doing!" Tali swept her weapon around wildly, causing Garrus and Wrex to duck as she took aim directly at each of them for a moment. "There are geth everywhere!"

Nihilus grabbed her shoulder. "Tali, what are you -" He was forced to dive off the platform as Ashley took a shot at him. Kaiden tossed a tech mine at May as well, causing her pistol to spark. May whipped out her slugthrowers. "What the heck has gotten into you three?"

"Stay back!" Tali pointed her shotgun directly at May. "Don't move, bosh'tet!"

May held up her hands. "Tali, calm down..." Her voice subtly shifted, dropping to a deep purring tone. "_Drop it!_"

Tali gasped as something about the whirring speech of the geth in front of her was interposed with the voice of May Shepard. Without thinking, her hands opened and the shotgun dropped. "...May?" She asked hesitantly.

May very deliberately nodded as the other two humans stopped. Carefully, May raised her tactical visor into place, and suddenly she saw she was surrounded by geth as well. "Listen to me, Tali. Our firewalls have been compromised, what you're seeing isn't real."

Tali struggled with her perception for a few seconds, then she closed her eyes. "Keelah! Shepard, I'm sorry, I..." The geth winked out of existence after a moment.

Nihilus gulped. "It looks like that cyber-warfare edge you humans have is a double-edged sword."

"No kidding. Tali, are you okay? Are you up to this?" May asked.

Tali nodded. "Ready when you are?"

May returned the nod. "Okay. I need you to head down to that mining laser and activate it. It should cut through the wall and let us get to Liara here."

"Right." Tali nodded and hopped down.

Kaiden shook his head. "Sorry Commander. Tali has an excuse of not knowing any better. It's her second mission with AR. I should have caught that."

May nodded. "Don't let that big a breach happen again."

Any further conversation was cut off as the mining laser activated. Once it burned out, the team carefully picked their way through the ruins and quickly made their way to the trap holding Liara. A few moments of fiddling with the console was enough to free her. "Thank you..." Liara took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I still don't know who you are or why you've come here..."

"Commander May Shepard," May introduced herself. "This is Nihilus Kryllik, Spectre, and our crew. We're here because of your mother, Benezia. We think she's working with Saren Arterius...and the geth."

"_What?_" Liara's jaw all but dropped. "Do you think I had something to do with this?"

Tali shook her head. "No, but there are geth, real geth, swarming all over this place. You're an expert on the Protheans, and they're looking for a Prothean artifact referred to as the 'Conduit.'"

Liara frowned. "I'm afraid I don't know much about the Conduit." The ruins started to rumble and shake. "...we'll talk later. These ruins are far from stable. The mining laser must have triggered a seismic event. Come on. There's a lift this way."

The elevator ascended rapidly as May shouted into her tool. "Joker! We need the _Normandy_ here and we need it yesterday!"

"Aye-aye, Ma'am. ETA eight minutes!" Joker replied in a rather relaxed tone.

"That's not going to be fast enough," Ashley warned.

Wrex couldn't resist quipping "If we die in here, I'll kill him."

The elevator reached the top, only for a number of geth - real ones, May could tell - to decloak as a krogan stepped out. "Surrender. Or don't. That'll be more fun." May noted with some alarm the krogan was completely empty-handed.

"We don't have time for this!" She raised her weapon and pulled the trigger, only to hear a vague electronic beep. The krogan smiled, showing a huge mouth full of teeth.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid you forgot to hook your weapons up to your firewall. Or maybe you remembered, and I just disconnected them earlier."

"SHIT! He's a technomancer!" May's curse startled everyone and she switched to her slugthrowers. Tali and Kaiden got the message and started working on the problem as everyone weaved in and out of cover.

Wrex, never one to turn down a fight however bad the disadvantage, knocked a geth over with a biotic shove and then grabbed the krogan by the arms, headbutting him. The virtuakinetic fell back, shaking his head, then returned the favor.

May found herself facing two large geth. With her non-electronic weapons out, she only had to get in close. Calling on her enhanced speed, she pirouetted around several shots, easily misdirecting the first few and keeping the snipers off of her. But her luck couldn't last, and armored only with a spell she found her defenses being breached by several concentrated blasts from the two's guns. With a growl, she rolled underneath a second volley and managed to shove her slugthrowers through the kinetic barriers. With a pull of the triggers, the two geth fell.

Wrex managed to get a grip on the technomantic krogan and slid a leg between his, tossing him to the ground and landing atop. The technomancer found himself at a loss as he was repeatedly punched in the face, until his lower jawbone broke and his eyes were bleeding, blocking his line of sight.

"GOT IT!" Tali called out. Garrus and Nihilus whipped out their rifles and immediately sprayed the closest sniper with lead, disabling it in record time. Ashley pulled out her own sniper rifle and, with a speed defying logic, took aim at the krogan technomancer's skull and put a single round through it. Kaiden went for the simple overload mine, frying the remaining snipers in one swift move.

May paused for a second to consider the siutation, making sure there were no more, then shouted "MOVE Two minutes left!"

They ran along the corridor and found themselves at an alternate exit to the ruins. Unfortunately, _this_ exit now hung over an active volcano. May took a quick calculation, and screamed "JUMP!" as she ran for the exit and made a flying leap.

Fortunately, Joker was there to catch her, the airlock door open and waiting for her to land when she got out there.

The others decided to be a little less dramatic, since it turned out they had time.

xoxoxoxoxox

The team, including Liara, sat in a semi-circle in the comms room, the only private area of the ship large enough for that many people. Joker was with them, but only via internal comms. "Commander, next time you promise a guy a 'hot night' please be specific. Landing in active volcanos isn't what I had in mind."

May smirked. "Joker, next time I promise you a hot night will be long after this mission."

Liara shook her head. "Is this what humans do after being placed in mortal peril?"

"Just the Commander, I think," Nihilus replied, clearly amused.

Kaiden shook his head. "Anyway...why was Saren chasing after you? Was it something to do with the Conduit?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," Liara explained, calming down a bit once she was called on to get into her specialty. "I'm afraid I don't know very much about the Conduit, beyond the fact that it was somehow related to the Prothean extinction. You see, that is my real area of expertise. I've spent the past fifty years trying to determine what happened to them."

May quirked an eyebrow. "Funny, I wouldn't have pegged you being quite that old..."

Liara flushed a slight purple color against her blue skin. "I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, but I'm only a hundred and six,"

"Damn!" Ashley exclaimed. "And I thought elves had it good."

May shook her head. "Not that good, Ash. We're old by four hundred, not all that ageless."

"Well," Liara shook her head. "That is the reason my work doesn't get much of the attention it deserves. Asari scholars dismiss me as a mere child."

May sighed. "I've got a theory, with a Prothean letter to back it up."

"Commander, forgive me, but I've hear - wait, what's a...'letter?' The translation didn't pick it up."

"Erm, forget it." May shook her hair out. "It was a message left in the Prothean Beacon on Eden Prime. Anyway, continue."

"Well, I have heard many theories," Liara said skeptically. "The problem is proof. There is remarkably little backing any of them up. The Protheans didn't leave much behind to work with. It is as if someone came after them and swept the galaxy of clues. But that's not the most remarkable part - the Protheans were not the first galactic civilization to vanish. Others came before them."

"Fuck!" M

y's sudden curse started everyone else in the room. The woman looked sheepish as she gestured for Liara to continue.

Liara obliged. "The whole of galactic history is based on a cycle. Each time a civilization rises up, it is violently cast down. Even the Prothean's greatest achievements, the Mass Relays and the Citadel, are based on those who came before."

May shook her head. "This...Liara, this is a lot to take in for me. Do you have any evidence to back this up?"

Liara sighed. "I'm afraid I do not. I have dedicated half my life to working on this. When you examine every scrap of evidence on the Protheans, patterns start to emerge. But...that's all it is. A feeling. One day, though, I'll prove it."

"Damn," May cursed again. "Not good enough. Not good enough!" She hit her hand against the wall of the ship, startling the rest of the crew.

Nihilus suddenly had a hand on her shoulder. "Shepard, are you all right?"

May shook her head. "I'm sorry...I'm fine. It's just...Liara, I know what happened because I activated the beacon. It put a message directly into my head. They, and all the others, were wiped out by a race of synthetics that come back to the galaxy every fifty thousand years to harvest organic life. The 'Reapers.'"

"Yes." Liara nodded, thinking at the speed of light. "That makes sense. The beacons are designed to transmit information directly into the mind of the user Still, they are tuned specifically for Prothean physiology. I'm amazed you were able to make any sense of it at all, Shepard, let alone what you did. Your willpower must be...amazing."

Ashley almost got out of her chair, but restrained herself. "This isn't helping us find Saren, or the Conduit."

Liara flushed and looked down. "Yes...I'm sorry...my scientific curiosity got the better of me."

May smiled. "Well, perhaps it wasn't a complete waste of time. I'll give Liara my notes on what I did see, see if she can make any sense out of them."

"And her biotics will come in handy when a fight breaks out," Wrex declared, amused.

May nodded. "There is that. Welcome to the team, Liara."

"Thank you Commander," Liara smiled. "I'm very grateful f...fo...woah..." The asari scientist wavered on her feet. "...I'm sorry, Commander, I'm rather exhausted."

May caught her easily end held the woman up. "Don't worry, Liara, you just need to rest. I'll set up another bunk in the science lab."

"Th...thank you Commander."

xoxoxoxoxox

Nihilus watched as May tossed a small ball up and down, laying on her bed. "You realize we can't breathe a word of this to the Council."

"I know," May said, tossing the ball up and down. "I don't know which possibility is worse for us, that I'll look like a love-struck fool or like I finally OD'd on something I can't handle,"

"You know, I have been meaning to ask you about that." Nihilus sat down on the bed. "I've read all the files on magic that the Council could get their hands on, and with STG backing us up that's considerable." May nodded for him to continue. "A great deal of magic seems to be tied to cultural expectations," Another nod. "Drugs are used by some as an enhancement, or a spiritual gateway, or whatever. But you seem to be . . . unique in that your magic actually seems to influence you to self-destructive behavior."

May sighed. "Do you want it in all those fancy sciencey hermetic terms I'm sure the STG reports favored?" Nihilus inclined his head slightly, indicating that she should continue. "Well, there are these things called 'Mentor Spirits'. Nobody knows where they come from or what they do, whether they're shared by all the shamans in a culture or unique to the mage.. What is known is that they follow broad patterns. My own mentor spirit was born out of the circumstances of my youth. It was...pleasant and unpleasant, all at the same time. I grew up in a den of vice and corruption, trained to be a living pleasure toy and not a lot else. They used every vice in the book to control us, until I learned how to turn it into power over others. In broad terms, my mentor spirit would be known as the 'Seductress' although she goes by many names. Ishtar, Aphrodite...I'm sure Turians have one in their ancient culture, probably demonized by now."

Nihilus looked at her very oddly. "So for you..."

May smirked. "A good lay is really a spiritual experience, and I can give a whole new meaning to the term 'sexual healing' if you'll let me."

"Riiiiight." Nihilus decided, perhaps wisely, to move on. "What brought you to being a soldier, then?"

May shrugged. "Meet lots of new people, get out and see the galaxy on someone else's dime, and legendary shore leave parties."

Nihilus sighed. "You are an enigma, May Shepard. Get some rest, we'll need to head back to the Citadel come morning. We'll give our report on the way, but you'll need to check in with Kahoku personally."

xoxoxoxoxox

_Normandy_ sped on its' way back to the Citadel, blue-shifted light streaming off of her as she flew towards the Relay and, eventually, home. May nodded to the crew as they went about their business, confident that they would get things done.

David Anderson had seen she would have the finest and most loyal crew in the Alliance working for her.

Very briefly she wondered if she could get a ship-wide party started, but it didn't seem like a good idea. Maybe another time.

"Council wants to speak with you, Commander." Joker said over the intercom suddenly.

May nodded. "Patch it through. Tell them I'll be a minute." She made her way to the FTL communications room.

Once she was there, the three holograms again stood in front of her. "The Council is not to be kept waiting, Commander," the Salarian reminded her. "For future reference."

May smiled. "Well, I was in another part of the ship. I can't _teleport_."

"Understandable." The Asari smiled graciously. "We got your report, and Nihilus'. Remarkable how you agreed on most of the aspects of the mission, and yet there was one thing. Something about each other's driving skills?"

May returned the smile. "We've reached a comrpomise. I think we're both utter maniacs behind the wheel of that thing."

"Right. Well, that is the least of our concerns," The Turian replied. "Doctor T'soni. I assume you're taking the necessary security precautions."

May nodded. "I think it's fine, but just in case I do have a spirit observing her. The geth _were_ trying to kill her."

The Asari shook her head. "Benezia would never let the geth kill her own daughter."

"Maybe she doesn't know," The Salarian suggested.

The Turian countered "Or maybe we don't know her. We never suspected she would turn traitor, after all."

The Salarian accepted that with a sigh. "At least the mission was a success."

"Except for the loss of a major Prothean ruin," the Turian said again. "I understand Nihilus said it was necessary, but I would still like to hear it from our candidate,"

May nodded. "It was the only way to get Liara out of that security trap, and get out alive. We had no idea that it would trigger a seismic event."

"Of course," The Salarian seemed satisfied with that answer.

The Asari smiled at her. "Good luck, Commander. You've done well."

The holograms winked out, and Nihilus stepped out from the back of the room. "Well done, Shepard. Better than the con job you pulled on them with the Saren investigation."

May grinned. "A lot of the time, the truth just works. Why lie when you don't have to?"

Nihilus returned the grin with a frown. "A lesson some people never learn."

xoxoxoxoxox

The _Normandy_ had barely cleared docking procedures when she stepped out onto the dock. Her link beeped at her, and a quick gesture over her omni-tool brought two messages up over her eyes. The first read _Please meet me in the Diplomat's Lounge on the Presidium. I have a proposition for you. -ND_. May dismissed the message with a snort and looked at the second. _Heard you were in Fist's office. Was wondering if you might have found any information for a news report. -Emily Wong._ May thought about it for a moment, then did a quick extranet lookup.

Emily Wong turned out to be a reputable investigative journalist. With another gesture, May loaded the information from Fist's files and forwarded it to her. Moments later her account was credited with a 'thanks' note. She smiled and turned to the elevator, running straight into an admiral. "Oh, sorry sir, got distracted by my 'link." She actually saluted him, which got a snort.

"Rear Admiral Mikhalovich, Fifth Fleet." May gulped as the man introduced himself. _Crap, the man who was in line for the Normandy before Hackett got it through me. _

"Commander May Shepard, _SSV Normandy_," she replied.

"Yes. _My_ ship," the man responded icily. "After her shakedown run, she was going to be assigned to the 62nd Scout Flotilla. Instead, the Council got it, and you."

_Shit shit shit,_ May kept up her smile. "Think of it as an opportunity for the Alliance, Sir."

"I don't begrudge your being thrown to the Council by the politicians, Shepard," he said wearily. "It keeps you out of my hair. I _do_ begrudge this overdesigned piece of tin, though."

"Sir," May couldn't help but say "She's _not_ overdesigned. She's performed beautifully so far,"

"She's a gimmick," The Admiral dismissed her claim. "This...thing diverted billions from our appropriations bills. For the same price, we could have had a heavy cruiser. Instead, we made nice to the Turians and got this. Useless in a stand-up fight. But...an Alliance warship all the same. I'm here to make an inspection."

"Please," May's smile became strained.

The Admiral went on without dismissing her. May groaned in frustration and started to pace while the Admiral went inside and started his rounds. Five minutes passed, then ten. At the twenty minute mark May just knew something had gone wrong. At thirty, she started weighing whether the Council would protect her from assassinating one Alliance admiral. At forty she was just on the edge of deciding whether she cared when the man came back out. "Commander, I am not happy."

"What's wrong, Sir?" May asked.

"Well, first of all, the CIC. Putting the command chair behind everyone else. What if you need to discuss things towards the bow?" Mikhalovich started to tick off his list, but May interrupted him.

"Sir, that's a Turian design. They like to be above their subordinates, looking down on things. I've adapted, but the production-line _Normandy_ class hasn't been finalized yet. It's an experiment, and I was already recommending against it on the line model." May said. "It has its' points, though, so I'll keep giving it a try."

"Still," the Admiral said "That's really something to be tried in a lab, not a prototype." He continued. "And that drive core. One hundred twenty _billion_ credits just to make this thing able to move without giving itself away? And what use is it to hide for a few hours anyway?"

May rolled her eyes. "Sir, _Normandy_ isn't really a front-line warship in the traditional sense. What about aircraft? Submarines?" She gave a significant pause. "The Ghost Dancers? Those things were all dismissed by the top brass when they were first used, and they all changed the face of warfare."

"I suppose you are right about that. The early U-Boats weren't elegant or cheap either," The admiral shook his head. "But your crew. Krogan? Asari? Quarians? I suppose being saddled with the Spectre Turians were inevitable, but really. Why not just invite a Vorcha, a Hanar, and a Volus? Give away our secrets to _all_ the aliens?"

"Sir, with all due respect, the Council gave me the right to choose my own team," May responded. "Nihilus said to choose the best I could find, and I did. If you don't like it, I suggest you make a formal complaint."

"I might just do that, Commander," Mikhalovich glared at her for a moment. "Any other _excuses_ you want to make for the state of the crew?"

"...Sir, the _Normandy_ is a fine ship." May said, choking back her desired response. One that involved flying lead. "And her multiracial crew will really win us political points. You have to see that."

Mikahlovich shook his head. "Commander, _your_ job is to look good. The Alliance Navy has to win wars."

May smirked. "Sir, I think you just agreed with me. I need to look good, and I've been given a ship to do it with."

The man who looked like he had been about to launch into a rant stared at her with bugged out eyes. "I...suppose I did. Very well, Commander. I'm not convinced this isn't a waste of taxpayer money, but I _am_ convinced you believe it, and that you'll make the most of its' potential. My report will not be as...negative...as I had planned. Dismissed."

xoxoxoxoxox

Another long elevator ride wasn't doing much good for May's nerves when another interruption really, really set her off. A woman, an obvious reporter by the looks of her, came tromping up. It didn't match the picture of Emily Wong she'd seen earlier, so that wouldn't be it. The floating cameras suggested someone entirely too full of herself, and the fact that she hadn't been informed meant this was an ambush. _Probably assuming I'm here to make my report to the Council. Knows I won't just punch her out right in front of the bosses. _Without much more thought, she realized she needed to get rid of the woman quickly.

"Commander Shepard!" the woman said excitedly, trying to get her attention. "My name is Kah -"

That was all she had the time to get out before May wound her arms around the confused woman, grabbing her, pulling her into a passionate embrace, and planting a kiss directly on her lips. 'Kah's' eyes widened as she realized May Shepard's hands were roaming indiscriminately, but for some reason found she couldn't quite muster the willpower to pull away. After a few moments of this, May released her and she slid bonelessly to the ground. May looked at her handiwork for a second, then walked away.

Kahoku, who had been talking into his terminal again, turned around at the gasps of shock and saw May walking away from the woman. "...Shepard, was _that_ really necessary?"

"Not a bit," May confirmed with a smile. "More fun than the alternatives, though. And she won't dare air _that_ so. . . "

"...right," Kahoku shook his head. "No sense of personal shame,"

"Shame doesn't get the job done, sir." May shrugged. "And speaking of which...I did find your men. I'm sorry. Thresher maw got them."

"No...that's impossible." Kahoku stared at her. "Not _my_ men. I trained them too well to get caught by a thresher maw!"

May sighed. "It wasn't their fault. Someone placed a distress beacon to lure them right into a trap." She sighed. "We got the bastard critter, at least. Thresher steaks are actually not bad, with the right spices."

"...I'll assume you're trying to cheer me up," Kahoku said, shaking his head. "I have other work to do, Shepard. You did your job, now I have to find out who did this."

May nodded, and walked away. There wasn't anything more that needed to be said. 


	3. Chapter 3

_Short A/N: Sorry to those following the story for the republish - I forgot about how idiotically handles scene breaks._

May walked down the hall into the Wards markets, fingering her pistol and wondering if she should skip the sweet-talking when dealing with the Salarian merchant who had sold the shoddy firewall. _Nah_, she thought to herself. _It could have gone worse, and he's the only source I've got for improvements_. She was just about to turn the corner when she froze, hearing a familiar voice

"Hey, remember me! Commander Shepard!"

May's head slowly turned towards the man. She only barely resisted the urge to face-palm "Conrad Verner, right. I remember we talked last time I was here..."

"Oh, wow, you remembered me...I'm sure guys try to talk to you all the time, but you remembered me..." The man was practically simpering

May might have been used to this kind of behavior, but she found it wearing thin from Conrad - not to mention a little worrying. "Yes, Conrad, I try to remember everyone I exchange words with..."

"Wow, that's really neat. Say, there are rumors on the extranet that they've made you the first human Spectre.." Conrad kept on rambling, not noticing that May had taken half a step back.

_Okay, you knew this had to happen eventually, _May's thoughts ran wild. _The surgery and the rejuvenate treatments together should put me in the clear, no one's going to recognize me from the old days even if they are still alive..._

May was so lost in thought she almost missed Conrad getting to his point "Can I get a photo, just to prove it to my wife?"

"Oh, yeah, right..." May said, quickly posing with one leg off the ground and a cute wink.

Conrad gulped. "Uhm, could you try looking a little more bad-ass? I know you have your image, but...well, my wife."

"Oh, sure," May said distractedly, pulling out her gun and doing some quick flips with it.

"Thanks, she'll love this." Conrad's grin threatened to blind May. "I'll just...uh...keep the other one in my personal link..."

xoxoxoxoxox

As May was unknowingly setting up one of the worst headaches to plague her life in the future, Nihilus was pulling up to one of the bars at the Presidium with Wrex, the latter looking distinctly amused by the way everyone chose to avoid him.

"What'll you have, Wrex?" The Spectre asked his unlikely companion, looking over his shoulder. Wrex just gave him a narrow-eyed look in reply. "Ryncol, got it. On the rocks, neat, mixed with the blood of your enemies?"

Wrex's response was a deadpan "Neat will be fine. I don't have the blood handy, so I'd have to go out and find an enemy to kill."

Nihilus chuckled. "Grab us a table." After a few minutes of wrangling, the larger of the two glasses Nihilus retrieved from the bar was placed in front of Wrex, and a small device was put down on the table and activated. "White Noise Generator."

Wrex quirked an eyebrow. "Not too loud, but it's annoying."

Nihilus took a sip of his own drink. "So, got some questions for you,"

"Am I in trouble, Spectre?" Wrex responded, taking a pull of his own drink. "Because if I am, you got a funny way of showing it."

Nihilus laughed. "Nothing like that, Urdnot. I'm just wondering what you think of Shepard."

Wrex actually looked surprised for a moment. "Well, she's insane. But you have to be to be a Spectre."

"I'm hurt," Nihilus didn't sound it in the least. "I''d already figured that out, but she's insane in most of the right ways. The rest just seem to be the way she operates."

Wrex shrugged and leaned back, voice going low and even more gravelly than usual. "She's trouble, but the kind of trouble I like. If you're asking what I think you're asking, you don't want to let her slip away from your little band of misfits."

Nihilus's mandibles raised up in a bit of surprise. "You think she's that good after seeing her for two missions."

Wrex laughed. "Oh, she's still rough around the edges. You'll need to train her right. But that isn't why you don't want her to get away."

Nihilus narrowed his eyes. "Just what are you saying?"

"Imagine being on the other side of someone like her," Wrex pointed out. "The metahumans are the only race with tricks like that, and if she's the best of theirs, she's the one you want backing you up. I think I might stick with her after this is done, seems like a better bet than solo work."

Nihilus gave him a look. "The Council doesn't always authorize group ops like this."

"Shepard's not going to give a damn what the Council authorizes."

xoxoxoxoxox*

Due to their unusual and highly adaptive neurological structure, Asari have had a reasonably easy time picking up on human simsense technology. Many developed Asari worlds have developed small simsense rental businesses, with a fad among younger girls following action serials.

Despite this, the Asari have dismissed the technology as a toy, preferring to rely on sophisticated agents for cyberwarfare.

xoxoxoxoxox*

"Whew..." May accessed her link to see where her crew-mates were. "Long day...think I'll hit Flux for a drink. Let's see who's near there..." A few quick mental commands and she was pinged with the data. "Huh, Garrus and Liara." She quickly sent them a message and strolled up the stairs to the club, grabbing a spot at the bar.

A few minutes later her attention was grabbed by the sounds of a weapon being drawn near the door, barely heard over the loud music of the club. May's head turned...and saw Garrus trying to muscle his way in. "Oi, oi." May rushed over to the scene. "Garrus, I'm not in trouble."

Garrus' mandibles twitched. "But...your message..."

"Relax, man." May grinned broadly at him. "I just wanted to have a drink and relax."

Garrus' confusion grew. "But...the regs..." At May's raised eyebrow, his shoulders slumped. "Commander, that channel's for priority messages. Could you please not use it unless it's a priority...wait, bad phrasing." He took a moment. "Please use that channel for actual emergencies in downtime."

May blinked a few times. "Oh. Sorry." A credit chit quickly found its' way into the bouncer's hand. "Sorry for the trouble," May said to him, before leading Garrus to the bar. "So, Garrus, what do you like to do in your off time?"

"Off...time?" Garrus looked puzzled.

May frowned. "Translators might not be working...when you're off duty?"

Garrus hit his hand in understanding. "Ah. I've been reading, actually. Recently I started on the human religious text..."

May laughed at that. "Garrus, there are over two hundred registered religions in the census alone, not to mention some of the smaller cults. You'll have to be more specific."

Garrus' eyes "The 'Bible' I believe. Many of your peoples refer to it, even the ones with no affiliation."

"Oh, of course." May grinned. "Enjoying it?"

"It has been fascinating, especially the forms of some of God's messengers..." He looked up. "Did you invite Liara to join us?"

May nodded. "I was hoping we could all get to know each other, especially since I was thinking of putting you two together on the second squad."

Garrus raised an eyebrow at that. "I'd have thought Nihilus would want one."

May raised a hand to her lips to stifle a giggle. "Not really, then he wouldn't be able to watch me closely. But we're running up against the limit of what we can do as a single unit. Too many guns in one place with eight people. Two squads of four will be more effective against Geth. With metahumans and most other species we'll want to work more closely."

"But shouldn't you go with one of your own officers?"

May paused, actually considering this. "Kaiden could probably do it, but I'm not sure he's ready for command. And I'm not positive the _Normandy_is the posting for him. He's too much into the rules and regs the Alliance sets down, not enough focus on his personal code."

The turian took awhile to think about it, but decided to take the bait. "You mentioned something like that before. Something about 'having to play by my own rules.'"

"Good," the blonde interrupted. "You were paying attention. Garrus, before I joined the Alliance I was...I guess a freelancer. I saw a _lot_of people come and go over the years. Most of them had skills. Quite a few would kill Nihilus and probably the rest of us without giving us a chance to get a shot off.

"_None_of those bastards are still around," May continued. "Do you know who is here? The ones who found their limits, what they were and weren't willing to do, and stuck with it. It's not about skills, either."

Garrus finished his drink in one pull after that. "And just what are the infamous May Shepard's limits?"

May smirked. "We'll get into that later, if you're still having trouble. Liara's here." The young Asari had walked through the door to the club.

Garrus waved her over. "You know, that channel was for emergencies. I nearly shot the bouncer before we had the trouble cleared up. How did you know?"

Liara looked a little uncomfortable. "I was concerned, but I didn't think May would send an emergency message encircled in a heart."

May blushed a bit as Garrus glared at her. "I did the same with yours, you know." A few moments of awkward silence followed. "So, Liara, how are you settling in?"

"Quite well." Liara said. "I found the library of virtual prothean ruins in your database quite fascinating." May nearly dropped her drink at that. "Is something wrong?"

"...no." May tossed back the beer to buy herself a moment. "I'm just surprised you managed to learn to work our computer system so quickly. I didn't think Dr. Chakwas had set up an Asari DNI protocol yet."

Liara looked pensive. "I'm sorry, did I do something wrong? The calibration on the computer took quite a long time."

"That...shouldn't have worked." May quickly furrowed her brow in concentration, calling up an AR interface to start looking up the information. "Trode nets are supposed to be species specific. If the Quarians hadn't paid NeoNET to develop the technology for them Tali probably wouldn't be able to use our systems at all."

"This is fascinating, but I thought we weren't here to talk business," Garrus interrupted with some amusement.

May grinned. "Right, fair enough..."

xoxoxoxoxox

While they talked some more, it seemed inevitable that the evening would end far too soon. Eventually Garrus suggested that return to the _Normandy_ to rest up for the morning's departure Back on the ship May quickly threw her shopping to one side in her quarters, stretching her back out and turning to the VI interface next to her desk. "Computer, play some music. Something relaxing, it's been a long day." Just as she was about to lay down on her bunk, though, the chime to her door rang. "Enter."

"Are you decent, Commander?" Kaiden's voice came through the door.

May rolled her eyes. "Yes, LT."

"According to the regs or by your standards?" Kaiden replied, his voice sounding a little wry.

"Both," May's exasperated response came as she sat up.

The door slid open and Kaiden came inside. He took the chair from May's desk and spun it around. "Commander, there's something I've been meaning to talk about. This mission, it doesn't add up."

"What do you mean, Alenko?" May asked, leaning forward intently.

Kaiden squirmed under the attention, realizing that Shepard's gaze had hardened and she was actually scrutinizing him with real intent, something very different from her normal, laid-back approach. "It's just...one of the Council's best agents goes rogue, we're sent out here to find him...and we barely get any support, no real backup? There's writing on the wall, and someone isn't reading it."

May's reply was nothing like what he would have expected. "Kaiden, Let me be blunt. This operation is already a lot noisier than the Council would probably like. Saren got away with this because he was trusted to pull stuff off the Alliance wouldn't let an intelligence agent touch. He was clever, cautious, and operated mostly outside the Council's radar. That's all. And a large part of our job is to handle this without letting slip that Saren ever went rogue at all. Ideally, he should just disappear."

"Commander..." Kaiden's eyes were wide. "You make it sound like we're assassins or something."

"That is _exactly_ what we are being asked to do." May snapped. "If you can't handle that, get your transfer request in to me by morning. I'll make sure it doesn't get in the way of your career."

"Shepard, what has gotten into you? I thought you were better than that!" Kaiden stood up.

"LT, stand down!" May rolled backwards over the bed into a standing position. "I do not like it. If I thought, at any point, that doing anything _other_ than killing Saren would accomplish the mission, I would do it. But we're not going to be able to bring him in, and even if we manage to subdue him, I very much doubt we could hold him in the brig long enough to get back to the Citadel. And if we do, then what? C-Sec will never hang onto him until a fair trial, and he can break out of any prison we can devise. No, Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, Saren can't be brought in alive. When you get to be as dangerous as people like us, you realize that if you screw up, they'll just put you six feet under. Saren screwed up."

"...I...look, Shepard, I need to think about this." Kaiden stood up, backing towards the door.

May sighed. "Fine. Take a few days KP to cool your head. I'd give you shore leave but we don't have time."

"That...won't be necessary, Ma'am. I'll perform my duties." Kaiden saluted and started to turn, when May spoke up.

"If you are absolutely sure, Lieutenant."

xoxoxoxoxox

That morning, Nihilus quietly turned on the systems and put a call through.

"Report, Nihilus," the turian councilor popped up, alone, to speak with the Spectre.

Nihilus spoke quietly. "Miss Shepard is everything we hope for in candidates. Quick-thinking, independent-minded, and skilled. In a straight firefight most of us could probably win, but she's the sort to never fight fair if you force it. Team-mates, or assistance from her spirits, would probably turn the odds back in her favor."

"You sound convinced. Why not put her forward, then?" The Councilor was keeping his voice down as well.

Nihilus glanced back over his shoulder. "I do have my doubts. First and foremost, she would almost certainly never view this as an honor or privilege. It will always just be a job to her mind, one in what I suspect is a very long line."

"Open to bribery, then." The councilor shook his head. "Get rid of her. If she's that good..."

The Spectre shook his head. "Nothing so simple...I need more time to get into her head. I'm thinking of going to Noveria next,"

"Feros." May opened the door. "We're going to Feros." Both turians looked at May, absolutely startled. "Oh, you two did _not_seriously think we would be that naive, did you? Kaiden whipped up an agent to monitor comms in this room and let me know if anyone used it without authorization."

Nihilus' mandibles closed tightly over his mouth. "All right, why Feros?"

"Because the Alliance response I was hoping for there hasn't materialized yet, and there are civilians in the line of fire for this stupid little test of yours, Councilor."

The councilor's mouth nearly dropped open. "What? But that's...that's ludicrous!"

May paused. "Actually, on third thought, you'd probably right. I shouldn't have assumed either of you knew anything about that. Sorry Councilor. But since we're the cavalry, I want to get there before it's time to ride off into the sunset."

"...your own people would do that to...your own people, just to try to..._what_?" Nihilus tried to formulate the words.

May sighed. "Probably to make me look better in front of you. It's all theater, especially when megacorps are involved. But this time it bit them on the ass and if we don't bail them out, all those colonists will be dead in a week."

The councilor's mandibles snapped shut as he considered for a moment. "Since you're being so open with us, Commander, I'll take your advice. Nihilus, the Council is hereby commanding you to go to Feros and investigate there next."

xoxoxoxoxox*

At the end of the Corporate Wars, corporations were forbidden from having extraterritorial divisions dedicated to military or security operations. However, most found loopholes by contracting with weaker Earth governments to conduct their operations with minimal oversight. In the years since, many have illegally moved off-world and into the Skyllian Verge.

xoxoxoxoxox*

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. Just as the _Normandy_was pulling up to the Widow relay, a secure message session was established and a data package dropped off. Joker almost didn't see the intrusion, it was so fast, but when he did he cautiously isolated the message from the main systems and opened it on his personal link. "Commander, Nihilus, get up here, you need to see this."

It didn't take long for May and Nihilus to cross the _Normandy's_command deck, nearly bowling over Navigator Pressley in the process. When they got there, Joker used his omni-tool to open the message without a word. A small hologram of Admiral Kahoku appeared. "Shepard, I hope you get this. I found out what happened to my men. It was a corporate Alliance group named 'Cerberus.' Contractors for black-ops, intelligence, wetwork, you name it." He glanced over his shoulder. "They've gone completely rogue, Shepard. Just like the good old days, huh? I believe they're trying to produce some kind of super-soldier. I don't have much for you, other than the coordinates of one of their research worlds. I hope to God you can blow their cover."

May sighed and terminated the playback with a gesture. "Divert course, Joker. I don't like this, but we'll just have to hurry. Good thing you're the fastest in the fleet."

"Not fast at everything, Commander," Joker leaned forward to hook himself into the system.

May purred. "We'll find out some other time."

"Right, right, work now, play later." Joker quickly jacked in, his body going limp.

xoxoxoxoxox

The briefing room on the Normandy was filled with the fully-outfitted squad, sitting in their chairs and waiting for the briefing. Nihilus stood to one side while May paced back and forth, looking over the plans to the facility. "Joker got us this readout. It looks like some kind of bio-lab from the surface. Most of it is underground, but you'll notice the prominent air vents on the surface. That's more oxygen than most metahumans are going to need, at least in the numbers we've been led to expect. There are three wings. Ordinarily, I'd suggest a wireless hack from the exterior...but they're performing human experimentation in there. Since I don't have to worry about being arrested...I say we blow the hell out of the place."

Ashley raised her hand. "Who's running this lab?"

"It's an operation called 'Cerberus'." May said. "I've never heard of them, or at least not this specific bunch. Anybody else?"

Nihilus chose this moment to speak up. "I've seen the name connected to a number of organizations. All pro-Earther. All illegal. All very dangerous. And all seemingly unconnected to each other until now."

May nodded. "Or this could just be another link in the chain. Either way...We're going to need to do this quickly. I want to split into three squads."

Nihilus nodded. "I'll take this branch here." May glanced at him for a moment. "...and if you like, I can bring Lieutenant Alenko with me to deal with arming the bomb."

"Right." May smiled. "Garrus, you take...Williams and Liara. If you go down the west branch, I'll bring Tali and Wrex down the East branch. Grab any data from any systems you find, then wipe them."

Garrus looked over the data on the display quickly. "This all seems straightforward enough, except for those forward defenses. How do you plan to deal with them? Not the Mako..."

May glared at him. "Since everyone agrees the Mako is a miserable experience, I thought we'd re-purpose her slightly..."

xoxoxoxoxox*

The Mako sat in its' launch bay, ready to deploy, with the entire squad sitting inside.

"Commander," Ashley held firmly onto the armrests. "I would like to lodge a complaint. This seems like a really, _really_ bad idea."

Garrus also couldn't resist adding "We're going to be rebuilding the suspension after this is over..."

:"What?" May grinned wildly from the front seat. "The Mako's damn near indestructible and they'll never see this coming. Besides, Mikhailovich wanted a combat application for the _Normandy's _stealth drive_..._"

Suddenly Joker's voice cut in. "All right, guys, one rolling dropship coming up!" The _Normandy_screamed into the atmosphere, dumping her heat and radiation in a blue burst of light and decelerating just enough to avoid tearing herself to pieces. The bay opened and the Mako fell through the atmosphere, starting up its' engines and beginning to roll the tires while firing thrusters to keep it on an even trajectory...right through the turret systems guarding the front doors of the facility, sending them flying in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. The guards stared as the Mako crashed into the landscape, leaving a crater and severely twisting the axles, but leaving the passenger compartment intact.

The hatch opened and Nihilus popped out, putting a round in each guard's head with a Spectre assault rifle. "Okay, let's move out." He quickly hopped out, followed by the rest of the team.

"MOVE!" May ran ahead, followed up by a charging krogan. Then passed by a charging krogan who battered down the front doors and moved inside. May followed behind, her pistols out. The hallways of the facility were brushed chrome, with distinctive gold and black highlights that she hadn't seen in a facility for a very long time. Turning the first corner, she was surprised to see a simple design logo instead of the large dragon of the old Saeder-Krupp corporation.

Tali pointed at a nearby camera, triggering a program to make it shut down with an obvious crackle of electricity. "May, are you all right?"

"Yeah," May aimed her pistol at a guard and took a shot. "Don't worry, just bad memories." The commander rounded the corner to see Wrex already surrounded by dead soldiers from the rogue group. "Tali, get this door open!"

xoxoxoxoxox

The advantage of VR-level interactions with computer systems is not

The quarian quickly slid behind a barrel and brought up her VR interface. A few quick commands executed to the door lock forced open the normally closed interface, and she let the world around her fade into the representative code of the door's host. In an ironic choice, someone had decided to represent it as an animal shelter with various cages cast in stark shadow. Tali quickly realized that only one of the ten or so cages would actually open the door in the real world, but just looking at the inside of the host the only way to know which door to open would be to try them all, and let out the IC within. She pulled out the analyze tools in her virtual kit and got to work.

Meanwhile, in the real world, May twisted around the corner to fire another shot at a number of Cerberus troopers who had come up behind the squad. Wrex added several bursts of assault rifle fire before turning back to his partner. "Hey, you want to try some of that magic of yours Shepard?"

May fired off another burst. "I'd rather not. This is probably just a squad sent to exhaust us before they bring their mage in. If I use mine, we'll be at a disadvantage.."

"If you say so." Wrex reared back before letting loose a mighty biotic wave to knock the soldiers down. From there it was a simple matter to mop them up. May sighed once the job was done, turning away from the bodies once she'd confirmed the kills. "If I weren't planning on blowing these sick bastards away I'd probably feel worse about this."

Wrex eyed her up and down for a moment. "You seem pretty worked up as it is. Gonna flake out on me Shepard?"

May shook her head. "I'll be fine Wrex. Just not my usual style. I prefer ops where no one gets hurt 'till later."

The door opened, and Tali quickly switched back to AR. "Whew. That would have taken hours with wire cutters. These commlinks are amazing, May."

"I'll show you something else that's amazing..." May purred. Mostly jokingly. "But later. Let's get this done."

Wrex took point. "I remember when all you had to do was slap some omni-gel on these suckers."

May looked nonplussed. "Couldn't have been all there was to it."

Tali gave her a quick look that somehow conveyed a level of disbelief through the dark helmet. "There was a little more to the process, but most electronics could be bypassed by one of a few simple programs that would have the omni-gel build a circuit around the obstruction. But these new systems have so many layers of redundancies that -"

Tali didn't get a chance to finish her sentence, because the air in front of her exploded. May's form shifted again, becoming the elven woman the others had seen before, but stayed that way. "Astral mage! I'll get this one."

May's eyes slipped into the Astral plane, a realm where the energy of life glows in vibrant colors while The security mage in question stuck his head through an insubstantial wall, muttering some words in Latin. May decided to respond in kind, focusing a bolt of pure magical energy across the astral at him. On the physical realm, suddenly there was a scream as the mage's spirit briefly manifested, then faded into the ether.

"Problem solved, let's get moving."

A few more meters down the hallway, the last door opened to reveal a large lab with a single force cage dominating it. Inside there was a large, insectoid creature with giant claws about as long as May's thigh, which seemed rather content to be chewing on..."

"_Keelah..._" Tali sounded like she was about to be ill at just what the creature was chewing on.

May turned away, bringing up her comm system. "We found Admiral Kahoku. He won't be needing a rescue."

Joker's voice sounded a bit harsher than usual. "Just say the word, Commander."

"Negative, we're still here for the data." May went on. "Tali's getting the files from this lab now. Other teams, how are you doing?"

Nihilus came back first. "No problems, Shepard, reporting back to the . . . drop ship."

"We're clear Commander." Garrus replied as well.

Shepard kept her voice terse. "Very good. Set your packages and let's head back. Central timer starting now for five minutes. No hostiles remaining."

xoxoxoxoxox

The mood on the squad was somber on reaching the ship. The Mako was going to be out of commission for some time,. but that was the only bright spot. The encryption on the files was going to take some time to break, and the loss of the Admiral wasn't going to do them any favors.

And Joker had to cut in with some more good news. "I've got a message coming in on a secure channel, Commander. I think you're going to want to hear this one."

Without waiting for her answer, Joker put the man on. His smooth voice immediately made May think of a used transport salesman, slick as oil and about as trustworthy as the snake it came from. "Greetings. I represent someone with an interest in gathering information on Cerberus."

May frowned. "You were how Kahoku got the information..." she guessed.

"That's correct," the man on the other end of the connection confirmed. "It was on the condition that he provide us with the information he obtained. Se you see, we have no reason to harm him..."

May glanced at Nihilus, who just stared back. _So this is going to be a test..._"...I'm going to need the data to prove what happened here to Admiral Hackett."

"Relax, Shepard. I'm not looking for an exclusive here. But I do believe my employer did you a favor not long ago," The man's voice got even oilier, if that was possible. "Besides, I'm authorized to compensate you well."

May thought for a moment, then silenced the microphone to look to Nihilus. "I assume dealings with the Shadow Broker are authorized for Spectres?"

"On a limited basis," Nihilus confirmed for her.

May turned the mic back on. "All right, I'm transmitting the files, but let's make it clear this is one time only. The next time you need me to do something like this, you'd better do me another favor."

"You drive a hard bargain, but I think something can be worked out. Pleasure doing business." The connection cut out.

Nihilus shook his head. "Why did you do that? You as good as cut ties to the Shadow Broker with that kind of a condition."

May shrugged. "Something about his methods I don't trust. Balances in these kinds of things tend to work themselves out on their own. The only reason to engineer one is to forward some kind of agenda, and he's not owning up to his to anyone."

"I'll have to consider that," Nihilus ominously strode into his quarters.


	4. Chapter 4

The _SSV__Normandy__SR__-1_ is technically classified as a 'Frigate' under the Treaty of Farixen, but as with much of the Alliance that classification belies a serious difference in firepower. Externally, the _Normandy_ class only outfits a token selection of point defense lasers and heavy kinetic barriers, along with two Javelin torpedo bays.

However, other than the ship's marine detachment, the ship only has a crew of twelve – Three CIC officers, five engineers, two flight-lieutenants, a single medical officer, and one navigator. VI agents handle the majority of the tasks of running the ship, allowing the Alliance to run with crews much smaller than typical for Citadel Council forces.

With the space freed, the _Normandy_ gives over the majority of its' space to drone racks. In addition to the Mako, The _Normandy__'__s___systems are capable of managing remote control of up to fifty simultaneous drones, although in practice it cannot ready more than thirty to deploy in a single engagement. Typically, the ship will have twenty drones ready for space offense, fifteen for ground fire support, and the remainder will be on standby to be quickly configured for whatever mission the ship's mission requires. Re-configuring a drone will usually take one engineer five hours if parts are available.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

May Shepard strode past Dr. Chakwas with a nod in the older woman's direction, wearing the athletic shorts and T-shirt of the Alliance PT uniform. Being May, she had intentionally ordered both several sizes too small from the requisition officer. Chakwas just shook her head. "Try not to scare the poor dear, even though you know about Asari."

"Don't worry, Doc." May's return smile was infectious. "I know _exactly_ what I'm doing."

"That's _exactly_ what I'm afraid of." Chakwas imitated the girl's voice somewhat mockingly as she spoke.

May's smile turned sly as she brushed the door control panel and stepped into Liara's new quarters . What had originally been a bare-bones science lab had been augmented with even more shelving space, most of it now with various Prothean artifacts to catalog. May recognized a few spaces being filled by holograms – not as good, but real enough with a proper AR interface.

And sitting in a corner, hunched over the only desk and analyzing a data disk, was the asari woman herself. "Oh, Commander..."

"Please, call me May," The former elf gave Liara her friendliest grin. "Everybody else does. Except David Anderson and Ambassador Udina. And Garrus, if I don't remind him. And Wrex, but I'm not going to argue with a krogan if it isn't important." Looking down at her PT uniform, which had her name sewn into it. "Maybe I should lose the name tags?"

Liara found herself giggling. "That might help. But surely you didn't come down here just to talk..."

May took a few steps closer. "Well, actually, I kind of did. I am interested in getting to know my crew, you know..." Liara stared at May's approach. "And I have heard some things about what Asari can get up to..."

Seemingly oblivious, Liara looked up at May. "Are you sure you don't want to discuss my mother?"

"We have time..." May took a few steps closer, so intent on her prey she was completely unaware of the sound of the door opening behind her, or the near-silent footsteps of the intruder, until a talon gently hooked into her shirt to pull her back "HEY!"

Nihilus' grip was relentless. "Shepard, did you forget about our training session?"

"WHAT training session?" May struggled to get out of Nihilus' grasp, Liara stunned into silence by the scene.

Nihilus was relentless, his voice kept calm while May kicked. "The one I scheduled for this morning. Now, come on..."

Liara finally closed her jaw once May had been dragged from the office. "...what was that all about?"

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Garrus considered himself a patient member of his species. He also knew this wasn't true when it came to a lot of things, but it was what he told himself when he had to go for a fourth round with a recalcitrant witness, calibrate his weapons to work with a new scope, or talk to his family.

Or deal with Gunnery Chief Williams.

"Look, I don't understand the problem. The Commander's plan may have worked, but we'll need the Mako again sooner or later. I can do better spending my time fixing it than just sitting around recalibrating the guns..."

Ashley stepped right up into his face. "Oh, no way in Hell. The Mako's Alliance property. You're a passenger, Vakarian, and you aren't even authorized to be _on_ the Engineering level!"

"I don't see you stepping in to lend a hand," Garrus raised his own voice in response. "Yeah, the Mako's your property, but it's mostly standard parts. There's nothing classified about it that C-Sec doesn't already know. So what kind of secrets do you think you're hiding?"

"I am not about to take that from a deserting civvie BIRD BRA-"

Suddenly May's voice roared across the cargo bay. "GUNNERY CHIEF ASHLEY WILLIAMS, I DID NOT JUST HEAR THOSE WORDS!" Freeing herself from Nihilus' talons with a distinctive tearing sound, she stormed across the room to where the two were standing. "I know I wasn't about to hear you call Mister Vakarian a 'bird brain.' Because if I did, I would be forced to show you to the nearest AIRLOCK!"

Ashley paled. This was not the confident Commander who only seemed to emerge under fire, real or figurative. Nor was it the carefree, flirty little girl that seemed to be the woman's default mode. This was genuine rage, the kind that could do anything at any second. "But...Commander...he's not clea -"

"This has nothing to do with Garrus' clearance. If you had an issue with his presence, you should have brought it up with me!" May snarled. In the background, Nihilus' jaw had dropped completely open, his mandibles frozen. "I don't suppose you were there during the Emergence riots of '70? Or how about being forced to watch a Humanis 'demonstration' burn down an ork family's house because they had the temerity to _open their own business_? No? Williams, I nearly burned myself out saving those technomancer kids' lives. One of them literally died while I was trying to put his body back together. Do you have ANY idea what it's like to feel a life-force slip through your grasp like that, and know he died because he was _different? _No? Then don't you dare talk to me about how you are somehow justified in talking about _any_ race, species, or group in those kinds of terms!"

Only slightly calmer, she turned to Garrus. "And as for you, Chief Williams has a point. It only would have taken you twenty seconds to ask me to add you to the system, or Nihilus or Pressley could have done it. It's important to know who's been working on our equipment so we know what's been done. Understood?"

"Y...yes Ma'am!" Both human and turian gave frightened salutes to the Commander. May turned and walked back to Nihilus.

"...WELL!?" she snapped suddenly.

Nihilus gulped. "...yes ma'am."

As Nihilus found himself being pulled into the _Normandy__'__s_ computer room, Ashley finally found her voice. "...that's really weird."

"What is?" Garrus gulped, slowly recovering.

Ashley took a moment to process things. "...the Emergence Riots weren't in the 2170s. They were in the _2070__s_."

"...that would make the Commander..." Garrus shrugged. "Well, older than she looks, right?"

Ashley paused. "...yeah. Look, Garrus, I'm sorry, I really was out of line there with that bird-brain comment."

Garrus shook his head. "Just forget it. Mind if I get back to work?"

Ashley grinned, though her response was a little pained. "Yeah, let me help you with that..."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

In the computer room, Tali was waiting and trying to ignore what she had just heard. When May stormed in, though, she looked up. Though she tried to sound normal, she couldn't quite keep a quiver out of her voice. "Commander...is everything all right?"

May immediately softened on seeing her friend's familiar eyes. "Oh, yes, sorry Tali. I didn't mean to scare anyone..."

Nihilus came in behind the blonde woman, quietly closing the door. "Right...well, you certainly handled the situation. Now, I think we had a training session to get to. Ordinarily this would involve some time on the Citadel or at one of a few training camps we can borrow time on from the Council military races. But, well, Saren."

May raised an eyebrow. "So, standard Alliance VR training sims? Nihilus, I already have most of the certifications on those."

Tali glared slightly at Nihilus. "The Spectre had me make some modifications last night. I'd like to protest against this, the use of the defense encoding from the ship's systems is going too far. Do you understand what this might entail?"

Nihilus shrugged. "At a real facility she could get shot."

"And this could kill her all the same, Spectre..." Tali returned harshly.

Nihilus shrugged. "Hardly. You kept the peak signal controls in place, right? Worst that'll happen is she'll wake up over Feros."

May gulped, but steeled herself. "I passed before, I'll pass now." She walked over and put on the trode net, taking a seat next to Tali. "I assume you'll be monitoring me, Tali?" At the quarian's nod, she smiled broadly. "Good. There's no one I trust more at my back."

Tali didn't sound sure. "All right. Just in case, we'll be relaying the feed to Doctor Chakwas as well. I'm loading the first program."

May's world dissolved into a simple open field. A thousand yards away was an enemy camp with ten targets, while May herself was dressed in the standard Alliance uniform for the first time in her life. At her hip was a pistol with the N7 logo, and she also had a shotgun on her belt at the small of her back. Tali's voice came over the comm. "All right, Shepard. This is a standard exercise. Eliminate all targets in 30 minutes. If you get shot...well, you'll feel it."

May blinked. "Nihilus. This is the sniper rifle exam."

"Yes," Nihilus sounded amused, and a little distorted. "Yes it is."

"And..." May continued. "I don't appear to _have_ a sniper rifle."

"Oh, dear. I suppose you'll have to find some way to make do..."

xoxoxoxoxoxox*

The human computer systems have several degrees of Intrusion Countermeasures (IC) in known use. The most basic are the common traces, analysis, and access denial programs most species have had for centuries. But with the degree of criminal activity in the twenty-first century, this was deemed insufficient protection for sensitive data. Instead, programs were developed to attack an intruder's hardware, potentially reducing it to a smoking pile of junk, and even set up feedback loops in the simsense feed, knocking out or killing the intruders.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

A few hours later, Garrus cocked his head at Tali, pulling an unconscious May along on a floating stretcher through the cargo bay. He stood up from his work pulling out the bent axle on the Mako's front wheels and jogged over. "What happened to her?"

"Nihilus' first 'advanced' training program," Tali sounded disgusted. "He expected her to hold off two hundred geth with nothing but a pistol without magic. It was impossible. She did manage to take down about twenty of them first."

Garrus's voice resonated deeply in the back of his throat. "Wow, he's putting her through the wringer. I've never heard of a Spectre pulling something like that off."

"It's barbaric is what it is." Tali countered. "These 'virtual reality' programs can inflict real harm. And medi-gel isn't going to be any good here."

Garrus nearly dropped the tool he had been holding. "Will she be all right?"

"Doctor Chakwas seemed to think so," Tali sighed once the sentence was out. "I'll get her up to sickbay, just in case."

Garrus nodded. "I'll try to talk to Nihilus. This seems a little extreme."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

For the second time that day, Liara found her work interrupted by her door opening. "Shepard, were you -" She spun around in her chair and found herself looking at Wrex. "Oh, I'm sorry Wrex."

"Don't worry about it." Wrex leaned against a nearby wall. "Beats watching Shepard tear her Alliance pals a new one."

Liara filed that way with a quick "I see. Well, I was just working on this Prothean data disk we found in the Cerberus base. It's fascinating, actually. The data will take years to decipher fully, but with the help of the _Normandy__'__s_ systems I already have a full virtual copy to do the work from. Thirty years ago we might have had to destroy it to get the data that way."

"So why didn't you?" Wrex asked. "If it's got anything good, better to get it out faster, right?"

"Oh, no." Liara looked aghast. "We can't just destroy priceless artifacts." Seeing Wrex's pupils widen slightly in puzzlement, she considered trying to explain the cultural value before she settled on the practical. "Besides, if the analysis isn't done correctly the data's no good. Better to preserve the disk for additional study."

Wrex finally gave a quick nod after some thought. "That makes sense. Guess the point's moot anyway." Peering through a crack in the door, Wrex finally pushed away from the wall. "Well, I'll see you at the next mission briefing, Liara."

Liara smiled back. "So long, Wrex."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Ares Macrotechnology is one of the 'Big Ten' megacorporations on earth. With a seat on the Corporate Council and full representation in the United Nations, they are a significant voice in the Earth Alliance. On paper, like all the 'Big Ten' they have no space-based assets beyond joint ownership of the Zurich-Orbital satellite complex and a number of LEO communications satellites.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

A few hours later, May awoke to find herself already having been propped up in one of the chairs in the comms room. "...ugh...remind me not to mix ryncol with hemlock ever ever again..."

"You didn't have anything to drink, Shepard." Nihilus' amused voice seemed to be pounding into her skull.

May glared at him witheringly. "You used black IC bullets in training? Are you _insane_?"

Nihilus was unperturbed. "Didn't kill you, did it? At any rate, it's time for the briefing."

May slowly looked around to the mixed amused and concerned looks of her squad-mates. "Ugh...right. So...Feros." She stood up, slowly pacing to try to distract herself from the hammering pain in her head. "For those who weren't aware, Arespace was supposedly spun off from its' umbrella corporation in the aftermath of the Corporate Wars. To those not as in the know as they should be for something like this, that's a load of crap – Ares still has a controlling interest through shell companies, although the Alliance has final jurisdiction.

"Feros was settled a couple of years ago, establishing a colony named 'Zhu's Hope' in the shadow of a giant Prothean ruin for study. I'll upload maps and dossiers on key personnel to your 'links before we land, but bear in mind that the colony went dark shortly after we took off from the Cerberus base, and there had been rumors of Geth before that. Expect to go in heavy and go in hot.

"Our first goal will be to get to Zhu's Hope and clear out any hostiles. We dig in, establish a perimeter, and then I'll set up and bind a spirit for them as rear-guard if need be. After that, resources permitting, we'll take a second assault team up to the Arespace facility at the base of the artifact and rescue any civilians there.

"Remember that you'll be dealing with megacorp personnel here. Let them make the first hostile move in any situation, but if they attack, or attempt to hinder either the rescue or datasteal in any way, well, the Council HAS authorized lethal force." May slowly sat back down and rubbed her head. "Dammit, it should be illegal to have a hangover this bad without getting to enjoy being drunk or stoned first."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

A few hours later, the squad was suited up as the _Normandy_ flew into the atmosphere. "Okay Joker, this is your day. Deploy drones, standard sweep formation."

Joker couldn't have been happier if he'd been told it was his birthday. "You bet Commander!" Along the outside of the Normandy's hull, several small holes opened and a number of missile-like canisters shot out. Only instead of flying in an arc, when they reached their maximum height each deployed a single floating drone equipped with two heavy machine guns, which proceeded out to fly about the settlement.

Just as the _Normandy_ pulled into the landing bay at Zhu's Hope, Joker started getting the reports in. "Drones N-1 through 12 reporting engaging hostiles, Shepard. Looks like Geth, same models we saw on Eden Prime. Having them clear a path to the settlement for you."

"You know just what I like, Joker," May's reply came as she pulled on her full kit. "Let's hope it just stays the same models. You guys know what to do. I'll keep up fire support as best I can."

"Roger that, Shepard." Garrus grinned and made some adjustments to his rifle.

The doors opened and the squad stormed out, Wrex leading the way with a charge past a man on the gangway, and fortunately right past an explosion detonated by several geth. To the end of her days, May realized she would never be able to get the look of...blank acceptance on the man's face out of her mind as the fire engulfed him. When it was done, there was one less geth where Wrex had simply shoved it off the platform, and a burning, charred corpse. "OPEN FIRE!" A spray of bullets made short work of the primitive geth in front of them. "All right, caution here..." She stepped forward, sweeping her gun about the stairwell.

So she was rather surprised when a Geth dropped right in her face from several stories up and blasted into her. The plasma dissipated off of her protective magic, but knocked her back several steps. Kaiden caught her, and Tali's tech mine ripped the geth's shields apart before Ashley blew it away with a shotgun. "...okay, that was differeACK!" May dove to one side to avoid more fire from several more of the new geth, which were now leaping about the stairwell like mad frogs and gripping the walls like some kind of demented insect.

Nihilus responded to the new threat by launching a grenade into stairwell, bringing down a rain of debris, but also shattering the stalkers with the shock-wave and the follow-up destruction. "Careful, Shepard, that was an amateur mistake."

"...thanks Nihilus." May stood up, looking rattled.

Nihilus shook his head. "You rely too much on your ability to sense life-forms, not enough on your eyes and ears."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Many colonies under megacorporate funding function more like branches of the Earth corporation they're technically only sponsored by rather than as independent entities. By Alliance law, megacorporate citizens cannot be given preferential treatment, but part of the training for inclusion in colonization efforts often includes some level of of "corporate citizenship training."

This kind of 'bending the rules' is generally only tolerated as long as Alliance and Citadel Council authority are respected.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Pulling around the corner, the squad ran straight into a barricade manned by humans May gestured everyone forward, then holstered her weapons. "All right, what's the situation? You had someone on the docks..." May thought about mentioning his odd condition but decided against it, which seemed wise when a short, stout woman with red hair poked her head around the barricade.

When the dwarf spoke, it was with a barely-detectable listless quality that set May's teeth on edge. "Fai Dan, our leader, wishes to speak with you. He's on the other side of the camp."

May nodded, and made a quick gesture to the others. After clearing the barricade, they got their first look at the Zhu's Hope colony.

It was a disaster zone. The whole camp had obviously been intended to be a temporary measure that was converted to permanent housing. This was supplemented by several cargo ships which had obviously been so thoroughly cannibalized for parts that they would never fly again. Several giant generators were hooked up to temporary construction equipment, cranes designed to be integrated into the structure of the future colony as both supports and antennae.

May brought up a map of the outpost (as it would look once it was finished.) Three turrets would be set up just in case of pirates, but those hadn't been placed yet. She noted several offline generators as well and quickly checked for an extranet connection, finding the only one was her linkup with the _Normandy_. A quick check of the local mesh revealed nothing online but a corporate ad broadcast somewhere in the compound that her automatic filters were taking care of.

"Spread out!" May called. "Garrus, Ash, Nihilus! I need you on those walls, snipe down anything with a flashlight on the ground. Everyone else, cover the rear gate! I need time to get a spirit set up here for the long haul!" As her team moved into positions, she turned her link to Joker. "Joker, do we have a carrier drone handy?"

"Aye-aye, ma'am. The assault drones seem to be pushing the geth back." Joker's voice came back in, a little staticky but clear.

"Pull them back to the colony. Send out a shield drone to my location and the carrier." Kneeling on the ground, May pulled out a small entrenching tool and began digging a small groove in the ground, maybe four centimeters deep.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

A spirit can be bound to service for a great deal of time. The first, easy, method compels the spirit to a number of services. It can be called from anywhere there is a link to the Astral, but will only perform an agreed upon number of services unless bargained with or forced into more later. Doing this often not only offends the spirit, but mysteriously offends all others as well.

The other is to bind a spirit to a single task. The length of this task varies – specifically, it is always bound to the planetary solar year, plus a single day.

As the crew of the _SSV Chicago_ discovered right before the ship exploded just out of dry-dock, it's a bad idea to try to bind a spirit in the later fashion away from a planetary body.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

By this point, Wrex, Tali, Liara, and Kaiden had taken up positions at the colony's other entrance. Barricades had been set up, and a sliding chain-link fence gate that had once restricted entry to the main Prothean ruin site lay uselessly discarded on the ground. Two metahumans were there, and both were hulking, six-foot brutes with enough raw muscle to even impress Wrex, and had tusks, but that was where the similarity ended. The first, slightly bigger, had a dusky complexion, with slightly slanty eyes and a large machine-gun. The other, with more feminine curves, just held an assault rifle one handed. Liara stared at the pair while Kaiden introduced himself. "Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, _SSV__Normandy__._ One of you Fai Dan?"

The man nodded. "We're under attack by the Geth. You came at just the right time, we have a bit of a lull right now, but it won't last. Are you the commanding officer here?"

Kaiden shook his head. "That would be Commander Shepard, but she's getting to work on summoning a spirit to bind to the colony's defense. They've done well against the Geth in the past."

Fai Dan gave Kaiden a strange, pained look. "I need...to speak...to your commanding officer."

Liara lifted her hand to point in the direction of May, but Kaiden jumped in. "Are you _crazy__?_ I just told you that she's doing a binding ritual. Do you want to add an angry spirit to our problems?"

"...I'll wait." Fai Dan's reply was even more unemotional. Everybody from the Normandy landing party present stepped back nervously as he continued, dropping completely into a stilted monotone. "We have...to hold off the...geth."

"Finally, _something_ we agree on." Wrex pulled out his shotgun with a wide smile that showed every one of his teeth. "Oh, yeah, and I can hear them around the corner." He quickly spun into cover, followed by the rest of the squad.

It didn't take long for the geth to arrive in force, storming down the narrow stone hallways of the ruin entrance with the suicidal fanaticism of a machine that knows no fear of death. Liara's response was fastest, with space slowly warping in a glowing blue field, quickly settling into a miniature black sphere at the center which lifted, spun, and crashed the geth that ran into it about in a wild circle that didn't seem to stop, even while Tali and Kaiden were littering the area around them with small tech mines that blew up in a spectacular shower of electrical sparks that left the first wave slumped on the ground, deactivated.

"...Rats." Wrex ducked back down and re-checked the heat levels on his shotgun.

Tali's voice sounded distinctly amused. "I wouldn't worry too much, Wrex. Just use your rifle, I'm sure there will be plenty to go around."

Wrex pulled out his longer-ranged weapon. "Yeah. Just like it up close and personal. I like to feel the bones crunch.."

Liara, faintly discomfited, decided to just stick to the scientific facts. "But Wrex, the Geth don't have bones, they're metal and wire."

Wrex shrugged. "I'll take what I can get on this job."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Much debate surrounds the two 'modern' languages of Seperethiel and Or'Zet. The latter, favored by orks and trolls, is constructed to require a mouth with a pair of tusks (or retractable versions thereof, at least) for proper sound. Even more controversial, Seperethiel takes advantage of the slightly better range of hearing and vocalization of the elven throat. While any race can speak the language, elves claim that it sounds 'wrong.'

The reason for controversy, however, is that while there are no known records of anybody speaking these tongues prior to the twenty-first century, scientists specializing in linguistics claim that a study of the language reveals that both are far older, having undergone milennia of natural evolution to reach their current state.

Regardless, both tongues see extensive use in modern ritual magic of all kinds.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

The summoning circle was simple – a lot more so than May would like for a ritual of this kind of power. A simple ditch in the ground, with a couple of crude symbols at the cardinal points, it looked more like a primitive compass marker. She opened the connection to Joker again. "Where's my stuff, Joker?"

"Twenty seconds." Joker's voice sounded a little harried. "Had some problems with the bay door sticking, pollen count out there is really crazy,"

May was about to make another retort, but two drones flew overhead. The first was little more than a tall cylinder, which opened to reveal several shelves filled with incense, stored vials of various liquids in vacuum-seals to keep them relatively fresh, and several bags of small gemstones and powders. The shamaness quickly looked through the selection for what she needed, and pulled it out, then stepped inside the circle. "All right, get that shield up!"

As the blue light of the protective barrier sprung to life around her, May quickly and efficiently started removing her Spectre combat gear. The bodysuit, belt, and even her weapons all set neatly to one side, she pulled out a tiny vial of mercury and poured it into the trench. Despite the amount of the silvery liquid metal not possibly being enough to do so, the circle filled and began to shine with an eerie glow.

Next, May used two sticks of incense to fill the kinetic bubble with fragrant smoke that threatened to overwhelm her senses even as the oxygen started to deplete slightly, leaving her light headed.

Satisfied, May began to dance slowly in place, as if enticing some unseen audience. A few words in the strange elven tongue of Seperethiel flowed from her lips, and she could hear deep, primitive music in the back of her mind.

This was when vines shot out of the ground and immediately wrapped around her body.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Meanwhile, Garrus found himself in a sniping match against one of the best Spectres. The settlement had a long no-man's-land surrounding it on all sides, with only a few barren rocks for cover. Despite that, there were obviously a number of tunnels that led around the settlement and to the surface through the stone. "What do you two think? The geth digging and trying to find the settlement?" He popped off the camera on one of the robots before ducking back into cover, just in time to avoid a plasma sphere being returned.

Two more reports from Nihilus, and one from Ashley, signaled the end of another three of the synthetics. Nihilus paused after scanning the field for another target. "No, probably naturally occurring. They'd just come up under the colony."

Garrus shifted his field of view, taking three shots in rapid succession. He winced as the rifle in his hands suddenly vented from the excessive heat. "Oh, there's something I'd been meaning to ask you about?"

"Is now really the time?" Nihilus took two more shots, then ducked and moved to the side, around a support tower to get a better angle on his side of the field.

Garrus tried to take a shot, kicking up a small cloud of dust and forcing a new squadron of geth back into their tunnel. Ashley's rifle started making even reports, telling the two turians that the bulk of the assault had shifted. "Williams has things under control for the moment. About what happened to the Commander. I know Spectre training is harsh, but that seemed...a little excessive, compared to what I've heard."

"She's soft." Nihilus said bluntly. "If she weren't what she is, I'd probably have sent her back to the Alliance already."

Garrus thought about this while adjusting the sight on his scope. "...so why keep going?"

There was a brief interruption as Joker cut in. "Guys, I'm picking up something from the Commander's link. She's not sweet-talking the spirit like usual. I'm powering up engines just in case we need an air strike."

The Spectre snapped back "This is no time for your sense of humor, Lieutenant!"

Ashley smirked. "He's not joking. It was nice knowing you, Krillik, Vakarian."

Nihilus seemed to need a moment to think about this. When he next spoke, it was with a great deal of hesitation and a return to the prior topic. "I'm not really positive. Officially, it's because she's already up to spec on almost everything except combat training that we've tested. If she can get through that, it will save a lot of time and maybe get that human ambassador off the Council's backs." Another shot rang out from Nihilus' weapon, sending two geth flying back and exploding. "What's curious is why she's in the humans Special Forces at all?"

Garrus swung his rifle in a wide arc. "She's pretty good, you have to admit that."

"Good shouldn't cut it." The Spectre took out another two with a single round. "And most of her specialization is only useful against other humans."

The other turian thought about it for a moment, before tossing out a tech mine in a wide arc over the battlefield and behind a large boulder. With a crackle of electricity, he noted with satisfaction a number of robots dropping out from the cover, inert. "Someone wanted one of those human 'wizards' to catch your eye."

"That's what I'm thinking." Nihilus took one last shot before stopping to examine his weapon. "But who, and why?"

Suddenly, Ashley's voice cut in. "DROPSHIP!"

xoxoxoxoxoxox

May found herself helplessly wrapped up in vines that had also swiftly covered the interior of the kinetic shield, forming a second protective layer against the outside world. Mana still flowed around her body, little wisps of white energy that were providing her only light, and reflecting off of the dust kicked up by the violent interruption to her ritual. "Well, I don't normally object to being tied up, but I like to have dinner first."

_Mine__..._ The soldier (for extremely questionable values of the word) stopped her squirming and looked around as the voice sounded in her mind. _Mine__..._ She heard it again and started to relax a bit as endorphins flooded her body.

Slowly, she became aware of a wrongness with the situation "Stop! I command you to stop!"

_You__have__no__power__here__. __I__take__. __I__control__._ May gulped as she realized she hadn't summoned an average spirit.

"Wh-what do you want?" May tried to ignore the vines wrapping even more tightly around her limbs, going from simply uncomfortable to the point of pain.

The voice was implacable, relentless. _You__. __Mine__. __Defend__._

May resumed her struggles now. "No!" She gathered her resolve, strengthening the flow of magic through the ritual, or what was left of it. "I tried to be reasonable, I tried to bargain, but if you want to force this, _I_ will make _you_ obey me!" Wisps of smoke started to cover the vines, choking them, drowning out the air for both elf and plant.

_Stop__!_ May's world exploded in blinding pain, but she didn't stop. She increased the pressure, even as she started to cough hard enough to wrack her chest with greater agony.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

The geth dropship, like all geth ships, had an insectoid appearance that seemed almost designed to set organics on edge. Its' segmented legs and body could land on almost any planet, what what set it off was a flexible head with two large, bulbous 'eyes' that actually contained the ship's sensor package. At only ten meters long, it seemed as if the thing could probably only hold a handful of geth, six or seven at the most.

If they needed the space an organic would to be flown into battle, this would probably be correct.

Instead, the ship dropped almost thirty small units, folded up and looking like eggs, throughout the settlement. The geth then unfolded, aiming their plasma weapons at anything that looked like it might move.

Three of the geth were notably taller than the others, armed with a larger gun and a backpack that could deploy assisting drones.

Nihilus saw these units and quickly switched weapons. "TAKE COVER!"

Kaiden's jaw drop as he saw the grenade launcher being aimed at the center of the colony And at the dome generated by the shielding drone. "Nihil-" His shouted warning didn't get any further than that before the entire courtyard exploded, the grenade kicking up smoke and water.

As the view cleared, it was obvious that Nihilus had gotten his intended target, but he'd also removed the shielding drone from the equation as well, revealing a smoking dome of hardened vines and leaves covering up the place where May had been.

Wrex looked around the courtyard. "Hey, Krillik! Save some for me!"

Nihilus had the good grace to look a little sheepish as he swapped back to his sniper rifle. "Go right ahead Wrex!"

With that, the colony erupted into chaos. Wrex charged through the geth, knocking several aside with his shotgun before blasting one on the ground. Shots were fired from the soldiers on the walls, mostly failing to penetrate the larger unit's shields but taking out the smaller geth quickly and efficiently. Liara made a sweeping gesture, pulling ten of the normal geth units into a controlled singularity before Kaiden blew them apart with a single biotic blast.

The geth responded quickly, shooting back with focused fire on Wrex, quickly stripping his shields down to nothing. With a curse, Wrex dove around the central structure of the colony to let his shields regain their charge. Nihilus was fired at next, and with no convenient cover he was forced into a mad dash to the ladder to try to escape, taking a severe burn to his arm for his trouble.

Through it all, Tali hung back. "All right, let's see what this Earther tech can really do..." She looked at the firewall for the larger geth, which she quickly designated a 'Prime' seeing the amount of traffic going into and out of it. "Target the large one I'm highlighting on your systems. It's a server for their targeting systems. That should weaken them substantially." Garrus and Ashley quickly switched their targets, pounding away at the prime unit's shielding.

But Tali wasn't done. She took a closer look at the other unit's firewall, and quickly noticed a flaw in the virtual representation. "All right, I think...I'm in!"

The second prime unit twitched spasmodically for a moment, and then started spraying plasma fire into its' fellows. They quickly turned on this new threat, only to have their shields stripped by Kaiden's own tech mine.

At that moment, a single solid vine shot up from the ground underneath each geth, piercing it through cleanly before vanishing along with the dome of vines. May was dropped to the ground, half-naked and coughing, with her Spectre suit in dire need of repair in the _Normandy__'__s_ fabricator. Luckily, both her belt and her weapons had survived the assault intact.

Liara was the first to May's side. "Commander, what happened? Are you all right?"

"I think..." May coughed again, nearly dry-heaving as she tried to get into a sitting position. "...that was...different...from what I was expecting.." Another cough wracked her as the rest of the squad arrived.

"C'mon, let's get you back to the Normandy," Kaiden said while he and Garrus tried to pick May up, but she waved them off.

"No...We stick to the plan. I should be okay in the morning, and even with the spirit playing guard we're going to need the night to make sure the colony works as a forward command center. I will take it easy, just make sure that we're in...good shape."

Ashley gave May a salute. "Do you want me to try to find you something to wear, Commander?"

May shook her head. "Doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother anyone else."

Kaiden and Ashley looked at each other.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

A few minutes later, May Shepard was sitting at a table, sharing a terrible cup of soykaf with Fai Dan. She was wearing a rather large and concealing set of clothes "borrowed" from one of the colonists that really just served to annoy her, but she could deal with it once they were on the road. "I'm happy to help," she said, carefully keeping her annoyance at her current predicament out of her voice.

"Nonetheless, you didn't have to do that. I'm grateful for any assistance," Fai Dan smiled warmly at her. "And with that spirit you managed to summon, even when they come back we'll be ready. I've never seen an act of magic like that before."

May groaned a bit. "I know. That took just about everything I had."

"Well, then, why don't you spend the night here?" Fai Dan grinned toothily at her. "We're a little short on supplies, but I think we can cover it. And you won't be long."

May smiled in return, taking a deep drink of the awful coffee substitute. "That would be lovely. I don't think we can make it back to the _Normandy_ but Joker can send over some supplies for us. Do you need anything?"

"Well, the supplies will help short-term. But if you really wanted to help, why don't you try asking around camp?" The ork glanced around, somewhat nervously, at that thought.

May quickly looked around the room herself. "See something?"

"No, nothing's wrong." He replied as casually as he could.

"Riiiiight." May continued on. "Anyway, we do still need to take care of the geth. Any idea where we should start?"

"Their central base is in the AresSpace headquarters."

May thought about that for a moment. "Right. Across the bridge there, inside the old ruin, right?"

"Exactly." Fai Dan's voice became a little more clipped. "I hope that you'll get them out of there quickly."

May smiled. "You can count on us."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Night fell over Zhu's hope, the yellow sun sinking between two tall towers on the horizon. The campfires were lit in the middle of the compound, but Tali'zorah noticed one of their number missing. Without even thinking she consulted her commlink and it reported that

May Shepard was on top of one of the walls of the settlement. Tali looked around for a ladder and quickly spotted the one closest to the human-looking woman.

As Tali approached, she realized that May wasn't just looking out into the distance. Instead, she had a heart-shaped locket open. Inside were two uncannily-realistic portraits of a woman with red hair. At least, Tali assumed they were the same woman. May's own expression seemed distant and sad. "May...are you all right?"

May didn't respond for a very long moment. Tali was almost tempted to ask again, but May finally smiled wistfully at the quarian. "Thank you Tali. I just...don't often have time to just sit back and remember."

Tali was about to back away, when May scooted over in obvious invitation. After another bit of hesitation, Tali decided to take the offered seat. "Thank you. It's not often my people are welcomed by anyone outside our own."

May blinked. "I guess I understand that from the Council side, but you may have noticed metahumanity is a little more varied while you were on the Citadel."

"It's been a little better with your crew, Commander," Tali admitted. "But still..." Looking to change the subject before there was a repeat of the Hurricane Shepard incident that day, Tali quickly looked down at the locket again. "Who was she? Your mother?"

"...my lover." May admitted. "She died about twenty years ago."

"...Keelah se'lai." Tali tried to wrap her head around that for a few moments. "...how old was she?"

"Over a hundred and twenty," May admitted. "She was human, I'm an elf. That's all there is to it. I didn't want to die, so when I had the option for some black-market Leonization, I took it. She...decided she had had enough after the first run through it."

Tali looked shocked. "What do you mean, Shepard? Are you saying metahumans can live forever?"

May swallowed. "It's not something that anybody likes to talk about much. The procedure is expensive, and somewhat risky. But...with enough medical treatment, in theory, yes. As an elf I would just be middle-aged by now if I hadn't gone in for the alterations. Instead I have the body, and the libido, I did when I was nineteen."

"...that's when you changed your appearance as well?" Tali asked.

May winced. "I can't say I never wish I hadn't done it. But the old 'me' was distinctive, and I'd made one too many enemies. It was time to disappear. Right into the Alliance was as good a place as any."

Tali gulped. "And...why are you telling me this?"

May slumped. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired of it. I'm sorry, Tali. I shouldn't have put this onto you."

"It's all right Shepard. I think...maybe, I understand you a little better now."

May looked up at this. "Actually, if you're talking about my downtime habits, you should probably know I was ten times worse than this before she died."

"...Keelah. Woman must've had the patience of a saint." May just laughed at Tali's last comment.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

That morning, May woke up and checked her link. She noticed that Nihilus had already taken care of calling a meeting prior to moving out, so she decided to see about the colony. Her attention, however, was immediately drawn by a salarian – the only alien she had seen. She walked over to him. "Hey. What's your story?"

The salarian smiled at her in a rather lazy fashion - especially considering his people's tendency to constant thought and action. "I am Ledra Inost, as you humans would call me. I was asked to make all of my supplies available to you."

May blinked. "Wait, so... you're a supply runner, or a traveling merchant?"

The salarian's speech suddenly became a little more stilted, although he still seemed to have a dreamy quality about him. "Somewhere in between. A salarian goes where the credits are...or...I did. I've decided to stay on. The colony life...grows on you after awhile"

May involuntarily backed up a step at that. "Uhm...okay...what do you have?" She quickly glanced through the selection, but only saw one thing of interest, picking up the spare store license and transferring it to her possession. "Well, I'll see you around."

"I'm...sure you will, commander." Ledan waved as May quickly hurried off.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Tali woke up with a slight groan – even though she had been assigned a bedroll, it was still not much better than sleeping on the ground, and with the perimeter set up she hadn't wanted to risk returning to the ship. When she managed to clear her eyes, she found herself staring at an old generator that wasn't working.

Well, there was only one thing to do with that. A moment later she already had a schematic up in front of her and was looking it over.

A moment after that an angry human woman shoved her head through the holographic interface. "Get away from that! That's the only generator we have!"

Tali was startled. "I understand that, but I used to work with these on my home ship. I think I can requisition some power cells from the _Normandy_. Will take all of five minutes."

The woman shook her head. "Your top of the line ship won't have anything we can use here. It's just too old, it's not compatible."

Tali snorted. "Ma'am, I can make things that were designed by different species and made three hundred years apart 'compatible.' Just give me a few mome-"

The woman cut her off. "It's. Not. Compatible." A long pause passed between them, and then she started again, speaking in a stilted manner. "...there should be one with an old personnel carrier in the tunnels. It might have enough power left,"

Tali nodded slowly and backed away, keeping her eyes locked on the human woman until she was inside the settlement's only building, at which point she turned and ran.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Garrus shook out his canteen in frustration. "Damn, wasn't planning on this taking more than a day." With a short sigh he dropped a pill into the container and hooked up a filter to its' mouth. When he turned on the sink, though, nothing came out. "What?" That was when the turian heard cursing. "Oh, great,." A quick jog revealed a water pump that was running dry and the source of the cursing, a human woman. "Let me guess, the geth."

"Got it in one," The woman looked back over her shoulder at him once the pump shut off. "They got to the utilities building almost first thing. Until we can clear them out of there, the colony's dry."

"Yeah, Joker?" Garrus addressed the pilot through his system. "If you're making supply runs, the colony could use some water,"

"I'm on it, Garrus," Joker's hologram appeared in his vision. "Will you be needing Perrier, or will just tap water do?"

Garrus rolled his eyes. "Just send what you've got. I can filter out anything I'll get a reaction from."

The woman smiled. "Well, that'll help, but we really need the water supply back for the long haul."

Garrus nodded. "We'll take it under advisement, but once the geth are gone you can probably do it yourself."

"...the colony needs water," Her response was suddenly drained of emotion. "...more than your ship can bring in..."

"...right..."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

"Got anything to eat around here?" Wrex enjoyed the effect his toothy grin had on...well, everybody who wasn't a krogan. He knew it was petty, but it seemed fair. He was a little off-put, then, when the tiny human only flinched for a moment instead of soiling his pants. Wrex was sure he'd get at least a whimper.

Instead, the human seemed to get control over himself almost instantly. "We're a little short on supplies. I could supplement them with varren meat, but the lead-"

"Oh, goodie, something to hunt. Well, won't be the first time, thanks for nothing, human." Wrex...slouched off, but inside he wasn't disappointed. Wouldn't be the first time by a long shot he had to hunt his own meal.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Shepard was carefully sliding a cleaning brush into the barrel of one of her slug-throwers when she was interrupted by a heavily accented voice. "Shepard we need to...what are you doing?"

"Getting all the slime out of my weapons. Good lord, you have no idea what that plant spirit did to them," May sighed, looking up. "Was there something you needed?"

Tali shook her head. "The people in this colony are acting very strange. One of them won't let me look at a simple problem with the generator,"

"Well, it's good that you tried to help," May beamed as she spoke. "But they're probably afraid they can't work around your jury-rig later."

"It's not just that!" Tali started to pace. "It was...worrying. The colony leader was speaking the same way when he insisted he needed to talk to you during your ritual..."

The commander frowned, reassembling the weapon as quickly as she could. "All right, Tali'zorah nar Raaya. It's not that I don't trust you, please understand, but you've just made a very serious accusation. I need to know that you understand what you just said, and that you are _absolutely_ certain you want me to take you seriously."

Tali found herself backing away.. The sheer intensity of the metahuman's accusation took her completely by surprise. "Shepard, what is wrong with you?"

"Tali...no, you're not going to understand unless I show you." May sighed, looking down at her weapons again. "Please, forgive me this."

Tali found herself frozen to the spot when May looked up. A sudden, curious sensation took her at that moment, and she felt like she was floating. Her hands slowly raised themselves towards the seals on her suit, but she felt like they were completely disconnected for a moment. As suddenly as it came, the sensation vanished and she had her shotgun out, pointed at May's head. "Boshtet! What did you DO?"

May was smiling sadly. "...do you understand? There are _things_in the galaxy that can mess with your head. I could have killed you without anyone being able to trace it to me. Well, in theory, in practice your survival instincts will kick in before you do anything as stupid as I tried to make you do..."

Tali took a deep breath. "Tell me why I shouldn't just shoot you right here?"

"...no reason," The woman admitted. "I was trying to make a point, but you have every right to be that angry. In my defense...you did need to know."

Tali squeezed down on the trigger. The lights on the weapon switched to blue, showing the safety was off. But...May just continued to stare at her with those sad eyes, and a moment later she lowered the weapon. "_Never_ do that to me again without my permission." May nodded, giving her a relieved smile. Tali decided it was best to move on, though she couldn't keep her anger out of her voice. "I'm not...certain it was the same...but it could have been."

May took a moment to consider this. "All right. If any of the others report anything, I'll come up with a plan."

At that moment Garrus turned the corner. "Commander, I just had the strangest conversation, I thought you ought to know that I think the colony here has been compromised by...something in your area of expertise,"

May nodded. "Right...I need you two to tell me everything about the conversations you just had..."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

The tunnels were dark, cramped, and funneled the entire squad into ambush after ambush.

It was just the way Wrex liked things.

"Hey, Shepard," the Krogan took aim down another corridor with an assault rifle, noting one of the leaping robots down his sight. "You bring us to the best places."

"I do my best, Wrex," she said, quietly nodding at him to take the shot. With anything less than the Spectre arms, the Battlemaster knew he would have needed a dedicated sniper, but he put three rounds down range and took the geth down in one. May nodded her approval. "Keep it going, nice and quiet. Joker's got the drones flying ECM, so hopefully they won't know we're here until the final approach."

The next cramped tunnel showed a blinking error light on one of many pipes. "Any idea what this is?" Ashley asked.

May frowned. "Part of the water system. Put a marker on it, we'll leave it alone until we're on our way back."

Tali frowned. "Actually, Commander, I think this is part of the local communications grid. I can put a virus on the system to open the valve on a signal sent through the extranet. It's unlikely the geth will be able to detect it."

May took a moment to think, then nodded. Moments later, the quarian was done. "There are probably more, this pipe is dry." With nothing more needing to be said, the squad continued forward.

Not long after, the tunnels started to creak and twist ominously, and the slightest vibration ran through the ground. Kaiden spun back, leveling his own pistol down the hall. "What was that?"

"Minor planetquake," Nihilus certainly sounded like he was smirking, amusement written all over his features. "Nothing for us to worry about. Take cover in that room." Up ahead was what looked like a small side chamber. The group quickly stacked up by the door, giving Kaiden cover for long enough to hack through the door, but once he had opened the door the human found himself face-to-snout with the largest Varren he had ever seen.

"...AHHHHHH!" An explosion of biotic force sent the critter flying back against the wall, but a pack of over thirty of the beasts was still inside, snarling at them.

May let out a curse. "Open fire!" The room was filled with gunfire and tech mines in seconds, assault rifles spraying in the hopes of catching all of the wolf-like varren before the creatures understood the concept of 'suppressive fire.' It worked, and didn't take long, but there was a problem.

"Dammit, I was going to eat that!" Wrex kicked the pulped remains of the alpha. "Did you have to use radioactive ammo? Tastes like eating mercury,"

May chuckled. "Sorry Wrex. I'll treat you next time we're on the Citadel. Most expensive restaurant you want, I promise."

Eventually, though, they came to what seemed like the end of the tunnels. "Dead end," Ash kicked the wall. "Now what? I don't like the look of that long bridge. Way too much open space, and the Mako's still under repair after that last stunt. What do we do now?"

May just smirked. "Well, there's a whole bunch of infrastructure piping right behind this wall. Nihilus, if you'll do the honors..."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

The first kilometer had been almost straight up. Magnetic clamps and grapples helped keep the climbers from plunging to their deaths, but it was still impossibly slow going. After that, the pipes made a sharp turn, following the underside of the bridge. Garrus, in particular, was uncomfortably aware that it was only a thin plate of some unidentified Prothean metal keeping them all from plunging to their deaths.

He quickly opened up another private channel with Nihilus. "You know, at first I thought this would be great, but now I'm not so convinced. The Commander's even crazier than I hear Spectres usually are. And am I the only one who got the vibe that she doesn't see anything wrong with this approach?"

"No, you're not," While the reply from the Spectre was what Garrus had been expecting, the tone wasn't. Instead of puzzlement, Garrus got the distinct impression that he was _impressed__._

Garrus took a moment to process that, but couldn't figure it out "...okay. Gonna let me in on the secret?" Nihilus made a non-committal noise. "Are you planning on letting the Council in on the secret?" The same noise came back. "...is this going to get us killed?"

That actually got Nihilus to think. "It seems unlikely. But I will keep a closer eye on this, just in case. I also think I know how to handle the rest of the training."

"Does this at least mean that we're not going to have to prop her up at the briefings from now on?"

"...probably not,"

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Lizbeth Baynham silently prayed that she wouldn't be noticed, cowering in the corner as another geth patrol went by. This had been the plan for over a day, and she didn't know if she was actually hiding, or had been dismissed as unimportant as long as she didn't get in their way. Brushing some messy brown hair out of her eyes, she tried to sink deeper into the shadow, for all the good it might do.

She was distracted for a moment when she heard a tapping at one of the walls. Startled, she backed away directly into the view of several robots. But it hardly seemed to matter, because the wall exploded. When the smoke cleared, and her head stopped ringing, the geth patrol was completely decimated and she was looking up at a blonde woman. "Hey, hey, are you all right?"

Her pulse was being checked, but she quickly brushed the woman aside. "I'll be fine."

"What are you still doing here?"

Lizbeth sighed. "It was...it was my own fault. Everyone else was running, so I tried to back up our data. Then the power went out, and the geth broke in. I've been hiding ever since,"

"Okay. We'll get you out as soon as we figure out why the Geth are here..." Nihilus suddenly elbowed May for her comment, which earned him a glare in return. "You put me in charge, and that's my decision."

Nihilus shook his head. "I'll put this in my report."

Lizbeth swallowed. "Look, the problem isn't the geth, it's these energy barriers. They don't want anyone getting access to..."

May smiled softly. "You can tell me. I promise not to turn you in."

"I'm...guessing they're here for..." Lizbeth snapped her jaw shut, before her eyes went distant. "...you...have...to stop them..."

May frowned, and looked over her shoulder at the aliens in her squad. Tali and Garrus nodded, and closed her eyes. "All right. Can you tell me how to get past the barriers?"

Lizbeth seemed to come to life again. "I think that the geth ship is the power source. if you take my ID, you can get past the locked doors, but there are geth everywhere. I've seen them laying power cables."

Kaiden looked at the woman pensively for a moment. "Commander, we need to talk."

May gave him a curt nod, then motioned the squad off. "Right. There's something off about all of this. Still, I don't think we have much choice but to trust her, for the moment."

"No we don't!" Alenko snapped back at his CO. "She's under mind control! And it looks like bugs! You know the protocol, commander!"

May swallowed, and nodded. "I do, Lieutenant. And that's why I'm not so quick to jump. We are not going to saturation-bomb a colony just because of what something 'looks like' without confirmation. So far it doesn't fit."

"And just how many hives have you had to clean out?" Ashley stepped in next to Kaiden. "Commander, if he's right they're gonna turn us into bug people."

May sighed. "Bugs don't work this way - they're not all in sync. This feels more like a single possessing force, maybe some brainwashing. It may be a hive, but if it is it's just starting out."

Garrus glanced back at Lizbeth worriedly now. "I remember that incident a few years ago with an Ant shaman. It was bad, Shepard. If this is just the early stages, how do we stop it if it's not 'kill it with fire?'"

May's lips twisted in concentration. "Find the shaman. It'll be one of the Arespace employees. This has already gone to Hell, so whoever it is will be looking to get out of Dodge with whatever bugs he's already managed to summon."

"And if it's too late?" Nihilus took his own glance back at the hapless company girl.

"Then we have Joker firebomb the place with us in it, if that's what it takes."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

It didn't take long for the squad to encounter their next obstacle. A krogan stood at a terminal, making arcane-looking gestures over the thing. May signaled a stop. "...Wrex? I'm not the greatest at distinguishing individual krogan yet, but doesn't he look familiar?"

"Yes." Wrex looked _very_ disturbed by it. "He's the same guy we wasted back on Therum. Except that's impossible."

"Do Krogan not have twins?" Liara asked quietly.

"Not anymore."

No one seemed to know how to respond to that, so May just leaned out around the corner and took careful aim. The technomantic krogan was still distracted by with the computer.

He never even heard the bullet before it went through his armor. With a roar of rage he turned around, only to see a full-grown Battlemaster charging him down and slamming him into the wall. "Who are you?" Wrex roared in his face. For all the good it did.

He was dead.

Disgusted, Wrex let the strange krogan's body drop to the ground. "Let's see what he found so interesting."

May nodded and swiped her hand over the terminal, transferring Lizbeth's ID key to the terminal. The VI popped up. "Welcome Back, Research Assistant Elizabeth Baynham. What may I do for you?" The computer's clipped voice and lack of emotion indicated a VI...and one that wasn't particularly advanced at that. May sighed. _Technomancer__probably__damaged__the__real__assistant__, __this__is__just__a__backup__._

"What was the last user attempting to access?"

The VI's image suddenly jumped. "ERROR! Last user unknown...please stand by...last files accessed from this terminal were arcane research project 29 – the Thorian."

May tried, and failed, to hide her shock. "...what's a Thorian?"

"Native spiritual life form." The VI could not possibly understand the significance of those words. May felt her legs give out from under her for a moment.

A moment later she found she was leaning against Tali. They looked at each other before jumping apart. "Uhm...sorry about that."

Liara was working at the terminal. "This is...fascinating. I'll need some time to study it, but it looks like the Thorian was worshiped by the Protheans when they built this facility."

May shook her head. "No...that's not quite right." The others looked to her. "I think the Thorian is an alien spirit. The first non-human magical manifestation that I'm aware of. The Protheans probably enslaved it, but it slipped its' bonds. That's probably what I compelled to guard the compound, but I didn't know what I was dealing with so it may not be using a definition of 'guard' you or I would be comfortable with."

Ashley shook her head in amazement. "Commander, why is it something monumental and disturbing happens on every planet we visit?"

"Dumb luck, I guess." May took a deep breath. "This doesn't change the mission. Thank god, I don't think I've have the stomach for that. We just get to add a crazy new type of spirit to the mix. Which we'll deal with later. Move out."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

The Prothean ruin itself had been converted into a maze of wiring, piping, and patrolling geth. Sticking to the shadows, waiting for patrols to pass, and relying on magical invisibility when that seemed destined to fail, the squad eventually made their way to the power source, only to see three of the quarian's former servants kneeling at an altar-like construction. They seemed totally distracted, so May just waved the squad past towards three long claws in the walls.

Tali analyzed it quickly. "If we can destroy one of the armatures, the geth will be forced to detach and likely to withdraw."

"Good. How do we do that?" May asked.

Nihilus shrugged. "I have a grenade launcher."

"...might work," May conceded. "But it'll throw barriers up eventually."

Kaiden looked over the structure. "We can probably improvise something. But I'm seeing activity on the geth's networks."

"...right, MOVE!" May signaled, and Ashley spun out into the corridor, assault rifle already firing and mowing down geth like blades of tall, metal grass. They reached the end of the hallway with ease, and found that the Geth had stuck one of the dropship's claws through an open shuttle bay. "Tali, Kaiden, get the firewall on that system down and disable the safeties! Everyone else, cover them!"

May found herself behind a low concrete block next to Liara, slowly gathering the strength for another spell. Shot after shot rang out around the pair, while plasma exploded against the walls all around them. Liara tried to stay calm, weaving strands of mass effect fields created by Kaiden and the various Geth weapons around and around, slowly whipping them together in the deadly maelstrom of a biotic singularity. Space began to warp, but more and more of the robots poured in, staying behind cover and out of the way of the archaeologist's power. "Where are they coming from?"

Tali groaned. "The geth are networked. When we destroyed the first one it must have had time to send out an alarm. They'll all be converging on us shortly."

Kaiden quickly brought up a tactical map in his display. "Looks like you'd need about two hundred men to hold this place."

May nodded, but she had hardly been idle. "Keep at it. The last of the reinforcements will be here soon. We have to hold out 'till then." Blue light poured from one hand to the other, slowly swirling into a spherical shape. Liara stopped firing to watch. "...is this magic?" she asked, to May's nod of confirmation.

"Biggest spell I've got for this kind of thing." More light gathered. "All right folks, let'em in a little closer..." Liara's singularity dropped while the crew quickly ordered their weapons to eject excess heat. The geth sensed the lessening of fire and approached, only for their world to explode. May had launched the sphere, which became a shower of sparking electricity all over the place, jumping from one machine to another in an awesome, if unlikely, display of power.

But the only problem was that it was more than she could handle. The geth were all gone, but May was doubled up on the ground, writhing in an obvious mixture of ecstasy and torture while her suit relayed fluctuating vital signs to the team. Liara quickly took control of her medical unit, administering medi-gel, but it did little to settle May's wildly fluttering heart-rate.

A few moments later, a loud noise from the shuttle-bay door heralded a slam to the ground, and the dropship's grip was loosened. Another unholy noise, and then an explosion, were the last anybody heard of it.

May Shepard's world faded to black as she fell into unconsciousness.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

It is generally accepted that there are three "planes" of reality. The only one most species can experience is the Physical realm. The Astral Plane is a mirror of the physical, showing the 'spirit' of the world, with lights and shadows determined by the ebbing and flowing of life force. The third, the metaplanes, exists both "above" and "below" the Astral. The home of all spirits who magicians call into the physical world, it can normally only be visited by powerful magicians, and even they will not risk the journey without reason.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

When May woke again, she found herself in a rather familiar position – that is, bound and strapped to a wall by her wrists and ankles. Judging by the humid air against her skin, she wasn't wearing a stitch. She also felt soft leaves all along her backside, and, with a blush, a few other places. But, with no real sign of a hangover, there wasn't a good reason to stay like this. With a deep breath, she slowly cracked her eyes open.

She was in a small grove, with leaves circling her and only letting in enough sunlight to keep her skin warm. As she turned her head, she noted idly that her hair seemed to have lengthened down past her waist, and was trailing over delicately pointed ears that she could feel. Really feel. She closed her eyes again, this time trying very hard not to panic.

When she opened them again, she was in for another shock. Staring back at her were a pair of deep blue eyes, not dissimilar to her own. The slant was considerably lessened, and they were set over a somewhat rounder face...

"Well well well..." the human woman, who stepped back, was dressed in full-fledged N7 armor. Flanked by a pair of combat drones, May couldn't help but notice that she had two very non-standard issue sidearms. Inlaid with orichalcum in a strange circuit pattern, they weren't slugthrowers but some kind of heavy-duty kinetic weapon, probably a new design. "Looks like the party girl finally found something she couldn't handle."

"Oh, and just what do you know about it?" May snapped back, starting to struggle against her bindings for a second, but a tightening around certain places made her stop. "I trust my team to handle things if I have to..."

"Trust them? Or make them do the work?" The woman circled around her easily. "You know you don't deserve everything you've been handed. You didn't really _do_ anything in the Blitz, the spirits you bound and compelled took all the heat for you." She laughed. "No, no, you're right, that's not fair. You really didn't ask to be me."

May blinked a few times. "I get it now."

"Took you long enough." 'Shepard' smirked back at her. "You're clinging to an old life that's long gone. You've been 'human' for ten years and yet you don't recognize yourself outside of a mirror. Maybe it would just be best to let me take over for you..."

May whimpered a bit as the vines curled up a bit tighter around her, a bit more intimately. "And just what would you do with my life?"

"Protect Earth, of course. What you're not willing to do" Shepard quietly checked her weapon. "You want to just lay around and have fun? Just stay right there and I'll handle everything, beautiful."

"..."

Shepard laughed. "Thinking about it, aren't you? Well, don't worry too much, thinking was never your strong suit, was it?"

"...shut up." May growled at her human self. "Just SHUT UP!"

Shepard started some sarcastic reply, but her eyes widened as May strained against, then snapped, the vines holding her down. "...wha-what are you doing?"

"Getting the hell out of here!" May charged Shepard down, kicking the armored soldier right between the legs, then dropping to the ground ahead of one of the pistols being dropped to catch it. Shepard dove for the other, and when they were both standing back up it was facing one another, each with a weapon at the other's head. "Oh, you've got a weapon. How cute."

May smirked back. "Well, yes. I'm gonna take every advantage I can get...and that includes not playing fair."

"And just what's that supposed to mean?" Shepard paused now, looking confused.

May grinned. "Simple. You've given up some of what it means to be me. You're still faster and stronger than a normal human...but with that armor on, there's something I'm going to bet you can't do."

"Oh, and just what is that?"

By the time Shepard had finished her sentence, May had simply vanished into thin air. A moment later, Shepard felt a heavy impact against the back of her skull, before falling unconscious.

May sighed and shook her head. "I'll protect my home my way, thank you." She looked up, only to see the leaves had closed in around her, sealing her into the clearing quite handily. Simply attempting to push them aside resulted in the branches growing thorns. May frowned – she knew her body was in bad shape, and using too much magic here could have fatal consequences.

But there was no way out but through. May sank to her knees, summoning a local spirit to her side. It pushed thorny barrier aside easily for her, but she was feeling exhausted already. "...too much more of this and I'm not gonna need Dr. Chakwas when I get back."

Fortunately for her, it seemed there wasn't much further to go. Just beyond her clearing was a giant fungal growth. Stretching high into the sky, May temporarily confused it with a mighty world tree, before the alien shape and the way it seemed to be suspended from an invisible point in the sky pretty much killed that impression. "...hoooly shit."

And then in front of her was... an asari. Impossibly beautiful, with green skin and a radiant smile. "Welcome. You stand in the realm of the Old Growth. Abide with us..."

May swallowed. But looking closer, she realized that it wasn't just the asari. Everyone from Zhu's Hope had a doppelganger in this place, all of them resting, eating mushrooms from the forest floor. They all had a strangely blissed-out expression. "...who are you?" she asked, warily, gently thumbing the safety on her pistol.

"I am a servant, as are we all," The asari purred. "I speak for the Old Growth, as I once did for Saren."

May looked about..."They aren't doing much serving."

"Their souls rest here, at peace...they need not suffer...and nor do you." May gulped as the self-admitted agent of Saren slipped closer. "Do not worry..."

May licked her lips with a small smile of sudden understanding. "Saren gave you to the spirit in return for something."

"Nothing...a trifle of knowledge...but if you want it..." The green-skinned woman was much closer now.

May barely noticed as she lifted the weapon into position and fired. She wasn't sure when her command-suit had re-appeared on her body, but the shot appeared to be a signal. The colonists awoke from their various stupors and started to run for her. May was ready, now, and struck back, twirling between each in a pirouette of pistol-whips and kicks that shouldn't have been possible. A knee to the stomach, a strike to the kidneys, even a quick twist of a broken arm, and not long after the colonists lay on the ground. Wounded, unconscious, but alive.

The spirit wasn't done messing with her yet, though. May was forced to dodge a biotic burst as the asari stood up, and then nearly tripped on a hand that had sprouted out of the ground. "Oh...shit." The Spectre candidate ran, holstering her pistol and digging out the assault rifle. She aimed, not at the asari or the plant-zombies rising from the earth around her, but at the tree. "Let's see how you like this!" A wild spray filled the air, as May found the weapon difficult to control. But the plant let forth a mighty roar, and several thick 'vines' lashed out directly, forcing May to duck and weave about. Another burst was answered by another biotic attack, this time from a second asari that had sprung up out of nowhere, threatening to tear May in two.

"...nnngh...let...me...go!"

A hand brushed her cheek from behind, and May felt her nervous system lighting on fire. "Of course...embrace your future..." May's eyes went wide, and an outside observer would see them go black for just a moment...before from somewhere, she elbowed the first clone in the solar plexus and reached for another weapon. The sniper rifle unfolded, and she took aim. If anything, May knew she was an even more terrible shot with this, but it was now or never...she took a deep breath, held it, and let the automatic sight settle. She pulled the trigger just as the next hand landed on her shoulder.

The Thorian exploded, showering the area in green goop. May just looked nonplussed for a few moments, before tendrils of astral energy started to whip around her, a maelstrom of energy and knowledge suddenly pouring into her mind. If the Prothean Beacon was bad, this was an order of magnitude worse! Cultural symbols, knowledge she could never have hoped to interpret, sensations, tastes, touches, the whirls of clouds in an alien sky, all of it laid over the knowledge of the great machines, those who came to end it all...the Reapers...

xoxoxoxoxoxox

May groaned as her eyes fluttered open – again, she noted – in the _Normandy's_ sickbay. "How long was I out?"

Dr. Chakwas sighed. "About twelve hours, Commander. And I'm relieving you of duty for at least a week."

May groaned. "Doc, I feel fine."

"You almost died," Chakwas countered. "If we hadn't gotten you back here..."

May sighed, defeated. "All right, all right. But get the fleet here. We need to lock this place down for an investigation. The corp was doing an unethical experiment with a magical life form, I'm sure of it..."

Chakwas frowned. "If you insist, but you're in no shape to conduct such an investigation. Now, _rest__or__I__will__sedate__you__._"

"...Yes'm."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

As per orders, May wasn't actually working on anything urgent. She couldn't start the next operation until Chakwas had cleared her after all.

Which was why she was reading a simple news publish from Noveria when Nihilus popped his head in. "What the hell happened back there, May?"

"I could ask you the same thing," May said with a slight smirk. "Sorry. The Thorian must have gotten its' astral hooks in me, but since I was getting rid of the Geth anyway it let me act on my own. But once it was done it used that spell I cast as an opening to pull me into its' metaplane to try to turn me into its' servant."

The Spectre nodded with understanding. "...like those insect spirits you confused the Keeper with?" he asked, just to be sure.

May thought about it. "Close enough for the moment. So, care to tell me the other side of the story?"

Nihilus shrugged. "Not a lot to tell. The geth ran for it after we took out the ship. The colonists in Zhu's Hope started trying to claw their way into the _Normandy_ not long after that, but it only took about a minute before they just...fell over like their strings were cut. The Alliance says they found some Ares Macrotech papers in the main labs."

May slumped back into the bed. "Good. Maybe those bastards will get what's coming."

"Sanction, at best. At least according to Hackett."

"Damn. So pay a few billion nuyen and go on their merry way," May threw down the datapad in her hand in disgust. "The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Colonists?"

"Being transported to Eden Prime for treatment." Nihilus let his mandibles relax visibly, trying to change the subject. "Are you up to a meeting with the Council?"

"I guess...although Chakwas did something to 'make sure I stay put...'"

xoxoxoxoxoxox

"Commander Shepard, why the hell are you out of uniform?" The Turian Councillor's face was as astonished as May had ever seen a Turian. Although the other Councillors were equally so.

So she just shrugged. "Someone find where Dr. Chakwas stowed it and everything else and I'll put something on."

The salarian coughed. "Right. I understand you ran into a little magical trouble on Feros."

"Something a little unusual. We'll be studying the reports for years." May sighed, pacing a bit. "I just hope it's the only one. Really."

"Be that as it may..." The Asari frowned. "You were seriously injured. The Council normally can't afford to have its' operatives out of action for a week after every little conflict."

May blinked. "I just discovered an entirely new form of astral life, it tried to eat my soul, and you think a week to recover is out of line?"

"And what _is_ the expected recovery time for a metahuman who does that?" The Turian didn't sound particularly impressed.

May bristled at the implication. "They _don't_, Councilor."

Nihilus stepped in. "We can discuss Commander Shepard's performance privately."

The Turian gave May one last disparaging look before getting back on topic. "Which is just what a colossal waste of time this was."

May sighed. "I am forced to agree. Useful for basic research. The beacon was definitely about the Reapers. But...still honestly couldn't tell you if what I saw was real or the equivalent of a Prothean entertainment vid. The only good news is that Saren probably can't tell either, even if he obviously believes it."

The Asari glanced between her comrades meaningfully. "You mean to tell me that you believe Saren may actually have become unstable."

"Well, he was heavily modified in a very short time," The Salarian pointed out. "It wouldn't be the first time a Spectre over-modified. Just remarkable that he's been hiding it."

The Turian snorted. "Nonsense. I've heard enough. Shepard, you're dismissed. Nihilus, stay." May gave a smart salute with a slight bounce that got the Asari's attention before she turned to leave. Once out of the room, the Turian continued. "Nihilus, how sure are you of her?"

"...honestly? When it comes to magic, I'm sure of less now than I was when we started this." Nihilus admitted reluctantly. "But as to the Commander herself, as long as you avoid her taboos she is a consummate professional. Her style is... unusual, to say the least. After this business with Saren, I don't think she'll be ready for the promotion right away. I'll forward my full recommendations soon."

"Very well." The Salarian gave him a rare smile and nod. "You're dismissed as well."

The three holograms of the Councillors winked out.


End file.
